The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 587 With God

In the 1989-90 season, the Spurs won 35 more games than the previous year—the biggest single-season comeback in NBA history.

In the NBA playoffs, David Robinson led his team to defeat the powerful Los Angeles Lakers and advance to the Western Conference Finals.

In David Robinson's second year as a professional player, according to NBA reports, Robinson's merchandise sales surpassed those of all players except Michael Jordan and Forrest Gump.

Within a year, he became a superstar with fans all over the country.

David is the only NBA player to rank in the top ten in all four statistical categories.

He finished third in the 1990 Most Valuable Player voting, behind only Forrest Gump and Magic Johnson.

David is richer, more famous, and more successful than he ever dreamed.

He was young, intelligent, tall, and very wealthy.

He has five luxury cars and two beautiful houses.

He dates beautiful women, and people always speak highly of him.

Everyone he met seemed to want to do something for him—you find that when you're successful, you're surrounded by good people.

When his brother Chuck came to visit David, he could hardly believe his brother's lifestyle.

“That’s amazing,” he told David. “You’ve got a knack for this, but you should think about what’s next.”

At the time, David Robinson thought his brother was a little jealous of him, but looking back many years later, he believes his brother's reminder was well-intentioned.

"My first year in the NBA went very smoothly. I played very well, I was a member of the NBA All-Star team. I had many endorsements, everything you can imagine. I had a house, money, fans, but I wasn't happy."

Despite having everything, he doesn't seem to be satisfied with his life.

David couldn't help but feel that something was wrong, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

David said, “Success is like a marshmallow. It tastes good when you first put it in your mouth, but it melts quickly. I achieved a lot of success quickly, made a lot of money, and got all the good things I wanted, but it didn’t make me happy. It has no substance. It looks good, but it disappears quickly. When you wake up in the morning, you still need to look in the mirror and not know what kind of person you will become.”

The truth is, fame and fortune have begun to change David.

Others still consider him a great man and an excellent role model.

But he said, “When I look at myself, I don’t like the person I’m becoming. I feel like I’m too important, and I start to become selfish and arrogant. If I’m half an hour late, I’ll think, it’s okay, because they can’t start without me. I’m the important person, and the more I realize that, the more I take advantage of it.”

“I feel uneasy—sometimes happy, sometimes sad. If the media writes an article criticizing me, I feel down. If everyone supports me, I feel great.”

He adjusts his emotions based on how others perceive him, and these perceptions are constantly changing.

He knew he needed something else to guide his emotions and his life.

At first, he believed that the basis for this was success, being a champion.

In the 1990 playoff semifinals, they defeated the Los Angeles Lakers, a remarkable achievement.

Prior to this, only the Rockets and the Trail Blazers had been able to beat the Lakers in the Western Conference during the 80s; the Spurs were the third.

During the series, David Stern presented David Robinson with the Rookie of the Year award at the Convention Center Arena.

Reaching the Western Conference Finals brought David Robinson's reputation to its peak in San Antonio.

This is only his first season. How much potential do they have in the future?

Robinson himself believed he had a chance to obtain the trophy that defined his life.

The Spurs' opponent in the Western Conference Finals is the formidable Portland Trail Blazers, who swept through the first two rounds.

The Trail Blazers achieved a record-tying 69 wins in the regular season, and Agan won the most prestigious regular season MVP and Defensive Player of the Year awards.

The awards ceremony took place before the start of Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals at Portland Memorial Stadium, where David Stern presented two weighty trophies to center and dominant center Forrest Gump.

David Robinson sat on the sidelines watching it all unfold, head down, eyes closed, imagining what it would be like to defeat Forrest Gump and the Trail Blazers.

They will make it to the finals and win the championship, at which point he will reach the pinnacle of his career, just like Bill Russell.

A dozen minutes later, the illusion was shattered. Forrest destroyed Robinson and the Spurs on the court, and the twin towers he formed with Sabonis were unstoppable.

The intensity of the Western Conference Finals is not something that ordinary people can withstand, not even David Robinson. They suffered a crushing defeat in the first game in Portland.

Robinson's bewildered state when facing Forrest Gump in the fight was replayed on television time and time again. Robinson was outmaneuvered; he was completely fooled by Forrest Gump's mesmerizing footwork and supple hooks, losing his bearings.

The same thing happened again in the second game. During an offensive play, Forrest used a stylish 360-degree spin to completely outmaneuver Robinson. When Robinson tried to block Forrest from behind, Forrest deliberately slowed down and drew a foul, resulting in a 2+1 play.

The television cameras focused on Robinson, on Brown yelling on the sidelines, on Forrest Gump clenching his fist after scoring, and on the towering Sabonis.

Television stations even began broadcasting footage of the 1988 Olympics, in which Sabonis defeated Robinson and the United States.

There were voices questioning Robinson everywhere in the media.

David is under immense pressure as he realizes the vast gap between himself and Forrest Gump, and how unrealistic his previous fantasies were.

But he still has a chance.

After returning to San Antonio, he prepared diligently for the match, but a priest named Greg Bauer found him and told Robinson that he had been praying for him.

Robinson ignored him and simply said, "Sorry, I need to train and prepare for the match."

When a confident Robinson tried to win the third game in the noisy Convention Center, the same thing happened as in the semifinals.

Led by Forrest Gump, the Trail Blazers' guards thrashed the San Antonio Spurs on the road with three-pointers, bringing the series score to 3-0.

The series was no longer in doubt, and David Robinson broke down.

After the game, he met Greg Bauer again, who asked him, "David, do you love God?"

“Of course I love it,” David replied in surprise.

“How much time do you spend praying?” Greg asked.

"Every now and then, before I eat, or sometimes before I go to sleep."

“How much time do you spend reading the Bible?” Greg asked.

“I think I have one here,” David replied, feeling uneasy. “I don’t quite understand.”

Bauer pressed further: “When you love someone, don’t you take the time to get to know them? God is everywhere, and He is watching you, David.”

“It was then that God seized me,” David recalled. “He gave me everything, but I didn’t think about giving back to him.”

He finally understood why he felt so uneasy.

When he heard Greg Bauer's question, David thought to himself, "I have never given God a single day to pray and thank Him."

I acted like a spoiled child; everything was about me, me, me.

How much money can I earn? I play basketball so that I can hear people cheering and applauding for me.

I have never stopped to glorify God or to think about what He has given me.

David suddenly felt extremely ashamed, and he began to cry uncontrollably.

He cried all afternoon, and God sent Greg Bauer to deliver the message.

All the material wealth he possessed was like cotton candy—it meant nothing.

They could not fill the emptiness in his soul.

Two days later, the Spurs faced the Trail Blazers again at home.

David Robinson gave it his all and played his best game of the series.

They battled the Trail Blazers to the very end, but Forrest Gump defeated the Spurs with a game-winning shot with 0.8 seconds left.

At that moment, David Robinson calmly accepted the defeat, convinced that it was also a gift from God.

He recalled, “I was following Forrest Gump, watching him win and win trophies, and I thought, wow! I’ve always wanted to be a player like Forrest Gump, right? Winning championships, being the best player in the game, I wanted everything he had. But seeing him win the series, win the Western Conference title, I think then you want to win the NBA championship. You already have three of those trophies, but you still want more, you keep wanting more. The past is always forgotten, people are only thinking about the next one, it’s endless.”

"This idea struck me again: pursuing success is like chasing your own tail; you can never win. Proving yourself to others is like trying to catch the wind. No matter what you do, there will always be someone who raises the bar. Or they'll start to discredit you. I realized that if this is the path I'm on, I'll run into a lot of trouble; it's a dead end. Like chasing a rainbow. The world's view of success will never satisfy me; there really has to be another way."

David was certain he had finally found it, with God.

—Excerpt from *The Admiral: The Story of David Robinson*, published in 2003 by Gregg and Deborah Shaw-Lewis.

(End of this chapter)