Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Plain

1. The Move

The fortunes of the Spurs ownership sort of collapsed in 2012, not into dire straits but into a place where owning a team was suddenly an unaffordable luxury. So, even as their team arrested time for an improbable fifth championship, their owners could talk privately only about what the title would do for the selling price. The celebration was outfitted with the second-best champagnes and rings of 80% gold. And they announced, a couple months after the Riverwalk title strut, that Tim Duncan would not be resigned. Gregg Popovich, still regarded as an elite coach, left with him. The other expiring contracts left as well, leaving the Spurs more or less depleted, at once in rebuilding mode. Most of us thought Tim was going to retire, and the TV networks in the area devoted considerable space to tributes for a few days. Then he and Popovich signed absurd 5-year contracts with the Oklahoma Thunder. It was a period of sadness, but no one in San Antonio could really complain about their lot. It was just something that happened, albeit something strange and unfortunate. So everyone was on good terms when the airship of Duncan and Popovich sailed the Texas land-sea up to Oklahoma on gossamer wings in the clouds. From the windows the two saw banners at the airport they'd left behind, thanking them for all the memories and titles. Of course, they wouldn't see my car until they had landed.

See, at this point I'd been a mop-boy for the Spurs since 2009. Alas, the Spurs were downsizing and mop-boys were as a rule not retained: In a revolution, the mop-boys are always the first to be destroyed. Once I'd heard about Duncan and Popovich, though, I decided immediately that I would follow them to Oklahoma and see if I could parlay my experiences with the Spurs to get a mopping job with the Thunder. So for a solid hour I packed my things into my car and I was off. I was an adult for the first time, so I could and would make my own choices from now on, according to my family. Thus debriefed, I immediately chose the route that seemed most familiar to where I had just been, because that wasn't so bad. That was what I was looking for in the Thunder job. Also, as a basketball journalist, Tim's northern migration was the most interesting story in basketball, and I wanted to be on the ground level for the exclusive story. All the tape recorders and notebooks took up almost my entire car. All my lap was filled with food and toiletries and I went to Oklahoma.

The Wheels Fall Off

From Spurs Media Day, 2009 at about 2:00.

Interviewer: Does Tim talk about or give the impression to you that, he doesn't have a lot of years left - he now needs to make these seasons count?

Richard Jefferson: No, I've seen him, and you can tell. His game is pretty much trash right now and I've told him that multiple times, that that's why they brought us all in here. Because of his deteriorating body and so, uh, it's one of those things that, you know, I tell him he should be thanking me more than I should be thanking him being brought into this situation. No, all kidding aside, Tim is a person that's gonna - I asked him when we were in the Olympics five years ago and he said he was gonna play until the wheels fell off. So he's a guy that's very passionate about this game - loves to play and so he's gonna play pretty much until they make him stop. Who knows how long he has?

2015

Richard Jefferson: I have called you all here for a press conference, to discuss my future in basketball.

Reporter 1: Are you retiring?

Santa Fe Post-Draft Catharsis Symphony

Enter: A spherical room of eyes, stomachs, membranous walls, and appendages, always misshapen, always reaching across the room to the other side.

The man inside heard a seal and a lock.  Looks like he would be here for the duration.  "So this is where they put the players that don't make the playoffs.  I guess I shouldn't have been injured, heh, heh, heh."  He had better make the most of it, he supposes.  Two months will fly by when you are busy!  The stench of organs and dead flesh and meaning would have been overwhelming, but the man in question is a man of indisputable military discipline.  After a few minutes the man had started a fire on some stalagmite-shaped tonsil twitching nervously.  After a few hours his experiments began.  After a while of the man and his business, he had settled things down. 

Two months pass when you are busy, indeed.  "The finals are over!  You can all come out now!"  David Stern's voice had been transmitted to the manifold rooms of the unsuccessful Spurs. Many of them had been psychologically broken merely by the months of solitude, even excluding the special horrors of their chambers.  Each Spur in his room claimed his room and experiences were the most extreme.  Despite these claims, David Robinson's room, the flesh sphere, had in fact been the worst.  The chambers opened to reveal some unneeded therapists and a certain friend of Mr. Robinson.