Stability helps teams succeed
stopped since Cheers was TV’s toprated show: They last missed the playoffs after the 1989-90 season.
“The streak is something you will think about more when you retire,” Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg says. “But you know you don’t want it to end while you are here.”
Gregg Popovich, Spurs coach since 1996, is the longest-tenured coach in major North American pro sports.
“We’ve all been together a lot of years,” Spurs owner Peter Holt says. “That stability brings a lot to the table.”
Stability is also the secret to the Red Wings’ success. Mike and Marian Ilitch have owned them for more than 30 years, during which they’ve employed just three general managers: Jim Devellano, Bryan Murray and Ken Holland.
Each franchise began its current run of greatness with a superstar, David Robinson for the Spurs and Steve Yzerman for the Red Wings. And each franchise kept its streak alive by acquiring another authentic star: Tim Duncan for San Antonio and Nicklas Lidstrom for Detroit.
“It’s a function of a great organization and great scouting,” ESPN NFL analyst Polian says. “You do have to have a little bit of luck. The franchise guy has to come along when you’re in a position to get him. But the bottom line is those kinds of players become the standard for your franchise and everybody else falls in line.”
Lidstrom was the first Europeanborn captain to lead a team to the Stanley Cup, which highlights another similarity: Each organization showed a willingness to look to other continents for stocking its roster, including Tony Parker (France) and Manu Ginobili (Argentina) for the Spurs and Pavel Datsyuk (Russia) and Zetterberg (Sweden) for the Red Wings.
“The Spurs pioneered the scouting and signing of foreign players in the NBA,” Polian says. “They got a jump with Ginobili and Parker before other teams realized that was a good source of talent.”
Holt says necessity was the mother of that dimension: “We were a small market, and we couldn’t afford to go buy all that talent. We were trying to compete with New York, L.A., (Portland Trail Blazers owner) Paul Allen and those kinds of people.”
The teams have their differences, too. The Red Wings are an Original Six franchise with a grand NHL tradition that includes Gordie Howe, the game’s most famous player in the 1950s and 1960s, long before the Spurs were born in 1967. San Antonio traces its ancestry to the outlaw American Basketball Association and didn’t join the NBA until 1976, when its greatest player was George “Iceman” Gervin, whose nickname would be at home on the rinks where Detroit plays.
ROOKIES PLAY ROLE
Lidstrom played for the Red Wings from 1991-92 until 2011-12 without ever missing the playoffs. Holland used to joke that he’d retire when Lidstrom did.
“But with Pavel and (Zetterberg) still here, I will hang in a little while longer,” Holland says.
This season, without Lidstrom, many hockey experts predicted the Detroit playoff streak would end, but the Red Wings got in as a No. 7 seed and advanced through the first round with a Game 7 road victory, just as they hope to do again tonight.
“I would say, for the first time in 15 years, this year was an unknown, because we didn’t know about our defense,” Holland says.
Among the defensemen who stepped up this season was rookie Brendan Smith, who turned 1 just before the 1990 playoffs began.
“The demand to win is such a bigger thing in this (dressing) room,” Smith says. “The whole atmosphere of the Detroit Red Wings is to demand perfection.”
The Spurs have looked to rookies recently as well. “They used to kid that (Popovich) never played a rookie,” Holt says. “Well, hell, last two years that’s what we’ve been doing, transitioning and bringing in those rookies. And he’s playing them.”
Carlo Colaiacovo played against the Red Wings often before signing with them last summer.
“From the outside looking in, the Red Wings always look like a firstclass organization that breeds winning,” Colaiacovo says. “It’s a team that most of us watched growing up because they are on TV all of the time. The team is supported by firstclass players who lead by example. When you come into the building, you can feel the tradition, and as a player you want to be a part of that.”
That’s the formula: Tradition plus success equals more success.
“We don’t see windows closing,” Holt says. “We don’t think that way. ... But I think that’s why we’ve done so well for so long as a small market. One, obviously, is David Robinson and then Tim Duncan. But as Tim said, I think he has played with like 120 guys over his (career), so (general manager) R.C. Buford has kept putting the right people around him.
“And then Tim and David, of course, were so unselfish that they made other players better. And so that attitude permeates the locker room. And then, of course, (Popovich) is, I think, a brilliant X’s and O guy. ... His ability to connect with his players is, in my opinion, second to none.
“Whether it’s season to season or game to game or quarter to quarter, he’s a mastermind at anticipating the changes that are going to be happening. That’s where we’ve been able to have such a winning team, is because of that anticipation. And he and R.C. are just two minds locked together in the way they look at the world.”
EXPECTATIONS HIGH
The Red Wings have had three coaches since 1993: Scotty Bowman, Dave Lewis and Mike Babcock. Bowman is in the argument for best coach in NHL history, Babcock for best current coach.
“When you put on our sweater, there’s an obligation to Mr. Howe and Mr. (Ted) Lindsay and people that came before you to compete like a Red Wing,” Babcock says. “I don’t think there’s an obligation to win like a Red Wing. There’s an obligation to prepare for the opportunity you’re given, to compete for what you’ve been given and to maximize your potential. That doesn’t guarantee winning.”
But the Red Wings have done plenty of that, with 100 or more points for the last 12 seasons until this lockout-shortened one.
“Expectations are real high here,” Babcock says, “and we are proud of that.”
San Antonio is also home to great expectations. Duncan is pleased to be back in the Finals for the first time since the Spurs’ last title in 2007.
“It feels like it’s been forever since we’ve been to this point,” Duncan says. “We’ve been on the verge. ... To get over that hump and get back into the Finals is just an amazing feeling, honestly. Nothing ’s promised. Teams continue to change, teams continue to get better every year, and we seem to make minimal changes and we continue to play and compete at a high level.”
Duncan is 37. He remembers what it felt like getting to the Finals for the first time in 1999.
“That kid didn’t know what the (heck) was going on,” Duncan says. “I was just going with the flow and happy to be there. Now it’s a lot more special. It’s been a long time, and I know the struggle it is. I know the luck you have, the health you have, the team you have to have, all that stuff that has to go into it to make it back here. I wouldn’t say I didn’t appreciate it then, but I definitely appreciate it more now.”
There is mutual appreciation, and respect, between the Red Wings and Spurs.
“You have to have respect for what San Antonio has done,” Holland says. “I’m a sports fan, and I’m aware of who is making the playoffs and who is doing what and who has been good for a long time. Certainly the San Antonio Spurs have been one of the standard setters in the NBA for a long time, and not only in the winning but also in the class they show in running their operation.”
And at this point it is clear Holland is talking as much about his own organization as San Antonio’s.
“They are about basketball, and winning, and winning with class, and respect for the game and the league,” Holland says.
“That’s something that we have tried to do, too.”