San Antonio Spurs: 15 players you may have forgot played in San Antonio
No. 14: Glenn Robinson (2004-05)
Putting Glenn Robinson’s career into a reflective capsule is difficult. Over the first ten years of his time in the league, “Big Dog” had averaged 20.8 points per game on a 52.9 true shooting percentage, noteworthy for its time.
He’d produced more 20-point seasons than anyone not named Shaquille O’Neal, Karl Malone, Allen Iverson or Chris Webber over a decade, and was just four years removed from being a Batman/Robin hybrid for a Milwaukee Bucks team that was a game shy of an NBA Finals berth, and memories in bunches (remember when Tracy McGrady called him “puppy dog” during their ’01 series?)
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The age of 32, for such a gifted scorer, should’ve been the time for him to be carving out a legacy for one team, leaving the way for jersey retirement talks in the future. Injuries to his ankles and elbows left him out of the NBA for nearly a year, before the Spurs came calling, a few weeks before the start of the 2005 Playoffs.
What maybe forget is that at the time, the Spurs actually wanted two-time Most Valuable Player Karl Malone to put alongside Tim Duncan, but after admitting his lack of zeal for the game, Robinson would have to suffice.
Big Dog used some old tricks, getting his double-digit scoring (10.0) by the skin of his teeth. Unlike many late-season signings, Robinson was impactful in the playoffs. In a tone-setting Game 1 of the 2005 Finals, Robinson came off the bench with three blocks.
ESPN Page 2’s Scoop Jackson wrote a thrilling piece on how Robinson overcame public narratives that he wouldn’t accept a role beneath stardom, à la Carmelo Anthony, and how he rose above the pain of losing his mother to lung cancer.
Humbled and seeking an ideal finish to his career, the San Antonio Spurs threw Robinson a bone, and he never made them regret it. Some stories do have good endings.