Media Interview After Spurs Win 2002-03 NBA Championship

The San Antonio Spurs have just won the 2000-03 NBA championship, beating the New Jersey Nets in six games. Right after Game Six, San Antonio center David Robinson spoke to the media. This is the Admiral's final NBA game. He's retiring. Below is his last-ever post-game transcript as a player.

Q: Can you talk about the emotion tonight. Playing at home, home court, what's going through your head right now?

David Robinson: Well, there was absolutely nothing bitter about it. It was all sweet.

As the game was going on, I just was thinking, you know, "We cannot lose this game." I kind of geared my game to say, "This was going to be my last home game."

At halftime, we were talking about it. I said, "Hey, guys, we're not gonna lose this game. We've got to do whatever it takes to win this one. We're gonna come and get this." This was going through my mind the whole time.

When we kept turning the ball over, we gave them some transition buckets, I was thinking, "We got to do something dramatic to get this thing turned around." That was probably the lowest that I felt, kind of felt like -- I actually thought there may be a Game 7.

But, you know, you just keep fighting through that stuff. That's what we kept doing. That fourth quarter was just unbelievable, it was fantastic. We finally made some shots. Stephen made some big threes and helped turn us around.

It was an up-and-down game a little bit, but kind of figured that we'd fight through it.

Q: Congratulations for tonight and a remarkable career.

David Robinson: Thank you.

Q: When you wake up tomorrow and realize it's over, what are you going to do? Second question, why have you chosen to give so much back to this city?

David Robinson: Well, the first question is that, the answer is that I've seen this coming for a long time. So it's no surprise, you know?

Last year, when we prayed about this, my wife and I sat down, prayed about it, we sat down and that's -- we made that decision at the beginning of the year because my heart was just settled. I knew that this was it. I knew that this was supposed to be the time. Sometimes God speaks to your heart and you have a settled feeling about it and I knew that.

All year long I just kind of enjoyed it. Everything that came along, I just swallowed up and it even now confirms it, the way it's come to end, you know? Just my last game, streamers flying... World champions. How could you write a better script than this, man? This is unbelievable.

I've had some ups and downs in my career, but I'm gonna end on the highest of highs. I just praise God. This has been unbelievable. I've seen it coming.

I know it's almost like graduating from high school or college or something, I just know there's the next phase of my life and I'm excited about it. There are lots of opportunities out there. But that's tomorrow. I'll tackle that challenge tomorrow. Today, I'm kind of -- I'm just gonna enjoy the finish of the first phase of my life.

Q: Do you drink champagne? This morning, could you ever have dreamed you would end up with 17 rebounds in this game? Could you have imagined that? Third of all, who is gonna be the spiritual and competitive and enthusiastic leader to take over your role in the future on this team?

David Robinson: Yeah, that's -- first of all, no, I just wear champagne, I don't drink it (laughter).

Second of all, God, I remember that third question... The second one now, what was the second one?

Q: About 17 rebounds.

David Robinson: I didn't figure that I'd get 17. I just knew I wanted to make an impact in this game. Actually, to be honest with you, coming into the game, I was thinking, "I almost don't want to do too much. When I have a pretty decent game, we don't win." I was thinking, "Okay, I want to block some shots, make some things happen, but I don't want my stats to look too good. We seem to lose when I actually get some decent stats." I wasn't that concerned about statistics. I just wanted to make an impact in the game.

Fortunately, early on, I could feel I was going to make an impact on this game.

In regards to the third question, coming up this year, really Malik is kind of the best guy to come in succession. He's really -- he's really grown a lot spiritually- and maturity-wise. He's becoming more of a leader; more of an example guy. We get together and we always get -- study our word together. I see him growing as a man.

Kevin Willis was one of my -- that was my strong brother this year. I love Kevin, I love him to death. I hope he's around this next year for -- I know he's gonna play, I hope he plays here this next year so he can be one of those guys to keep everybody steady. You have to have that in our locker room. That's been the strength of our team. We have a lot of young guys that go off the deep end at any time. They have often this year. Pop has done a good job of reeling guys in. He's benched some guys, shifted our line-up around a little bit but all those guys came around and responded terrifically.

I think a lot of it was because of that leadership, Kevin's voice in the locker room, Steve Kerr's voice in the locker room, Steve Smith's voice, my voice, and obviously Tim Duncan stepping up and being the leader he is.

As far as spiritual leaders go, I think Malik is the most obvious guy, and probably Kevin stepping up and becoming that.

Q: You talked about the situation having the streamers, winning the Championship on your floor. There was another player who's leaving with you this year who had that very similar situation and decided to come back; can you talk about how you knew this was the moment to leave, and Michael didn't?

David Robinson: Michael's a different situation. Who can compare themselves to Michael? Michael is Michael (smiling).

This is, you know, this is just my life. I know it's right for me. For him, he wanted to come back. I mean, the first time he came back, he did an unbelievable job. They won three more championships. He's unbelievable.

But for me, I know. I feel great about it. So, I mean, like I was saying earlier, there's no bitter to it, it's all sweet. It's just great.


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