David Maurice Robinson (born August 6, 1965(1965-08-06)) is a retired American NBA basketball player, who is often considered one of the greatest centers to ever play the game. Based on his prior service as an officer in the United States Navy, Robinson earned the nickname "The Admiral". He along with power-forward Tim Duncan, were nicknamed the "The Twin Towers".
Although there was speculation that Robinson might choose not to sign with the Spurs and to become a free agent once his Navy commitment ended, Robinson decided in the end to come to San Antonio. Robinson joined the Spurs for the 1989–90 season, and led the Spurs to the greatest single season turnaround in NBA history at the time (a record the Spurs themselves broke in 1997-98, after drafting Tim Duncan, which was then broken by the Boston Celtics in the 2007–08 NBA season). The Spurs went from 21–61 in the 1988–89 season to 56–26 in 1989–90, for a remarkable 35 game improvement. They advanced to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs where they lost in seven games to the eventual conference champion Portland Trail Blazers. Following the 1989–90 season, he was unanimously named the NBA rookie of the year, and subsequently SEGA produced a game featuring him entitled David Robinson's Supreme Court.
The Spurs made the playoffs seven more seasons in a row, but never advanced further than the Western Conference finals. Robinson also made the 1992 US Olympic Dream Team that won the gold medal in Barcelona. During the 1993–94 season, he became locked in a duel for scoring champion with Shaquille O'Neal, and by the last game of the season, he scored 71 points (breaking George Gervin's single-game franchise record of 63 on the final day of the 1977-78 NBA season) against the Los Angeles Clippers to win it.
Robinson went on to win the MVP trophy in 1995, and in 1996 he was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. Still, from 1991 to 1996, Robinson was thwarted in his quest to claim the one prize that had eluded him: an NBA title. During that span the Spurs were eliminated from the playoffs by the Warriors, Suns (twice), Jazz (twice), and Rockets. The loss against the Rockets was particularly painful for Robinson because it occurred in the Western Conference Finals with Robinson playing head-to-head against his chief rival, Hakeem Olajuwon. By his own admission, Robinson was outplayed by Olajuwon in the series, their only meetings in post-season play.
Early in the 1997 season, Robinson's dreams of becoming a champion seemed to vanish when he was seriously injured. Robinson hurt his back in the preseason and missed much of the regular season. He did return to play, but six games later, suffered a broken foot in a home game against the Miami Heat, and ended up missing the rest of the regular season (along with several other Spurs players who seemed to get bitten by the injury bug) and the Spurs subsequently fell in the standings and finished the season with a 20–62 record. However, his injury proved to be a blessing in disguise: due to their dismal record in 1997, the Spurs enjoyed the first pick in the next year's NBA draft, and with it they selected Tim Duncan out of Wake Forest University, who was, after a few years, the final key to Robinson's quest for an NBA title.
Before the start of the 1998–99 season, the NBA owners and the NBA commissioner David Stern locked out the NBA Players' Association to force negotiation on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. This lockout lasted for 202 days, well into the regular NBA season, until finally an agreement was reached. Thus, the NBA season began late on February 5, 1999, making it literally the 1999 NBA season. After playing a truncated 50-game season, the Spurs finished with an NBA-best record of 37–13, giving them the home-court advantage throughout the playoffs.
The Spurs blitzed through the first three rounds of the NBA playoffs, beating the Minnesota Timberwolves, Los Angeles Lakers, and Portland Trail Blazers by a combined record of 11–1. In the NBA finals, the combination of Robinson in the post and second-year, 6 ft 11 in (2.11 m) center Tim Duncan proved overpowering, the Spurs beat the underdog New York Knicks in five games to become the NBA champions, Duncan was named Finals MVP.
Robinson announced he would retire from basketball after the 2002–03 campaign.
On June 15, 2003, in the finale to Robinson's career, the Spurs sealed another NBA title with an 88–77 victory over the New Jersey Nets in game six of the 2003 NBA Finals. Robinson scored 13 points and grabbed 17 rebounds in his final game. He and the year's MVP Tim Duncan—together known as the "Twin Towers" —shared Sports Illustrated magazine's 2003 Sportsmen of the Year award.
Robinson's NBA career averages are 21.1 points per game, 10.7 rebounds per game, 3.0 blocks per game, and 2.5 assists per game. Also, he is one of only a very small group of players to have scored over 20,000 career points in the NBA, as well as being one of only four players to have recorded a quadruple-double (with 34 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists, and 10 blocks against the Detroit Pistons on February 17, 1994), and one of the only five players to record more than 70 points in a single game (with 71 points against the Los Angeles Clippers on April 24, 1994), only Elgin Baylor (71 points), Wilt Chamberlain (70, 72, 73×2, 78, 100 points), David Thompson (73 points), and Kobe Bryant (81 points) have scored more than 70 points.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Robinson_(basketball)&oldid=276900135