Welcome to Texas Talk.

I'm Gilbert Garcia, metro columnist for the San Antonio Express-News.

On this show, we bring you in-depth one on one conversations with some of the most fascinating figures in Texas politics, culture, sports and business.

Our guest tonight is a basketball legend.

Sean Elliott was a two time All-Star for the San Antonio Spurs in the 1980s and a major force on their first NBA championship team in 1999.

In 2000, he became the first player ever to make it back to the NBA.

After undergoing a kidney transplant.

Since retiring from the game, he stayed connected to the team as a lead analyst for the Spurs TV broadcast on tonight's show.

Elliott offers his impressions of this year's Spurs team, talks about what it will take to make them a contender again, and revisits his storied career on the court.

Let's get started.

Sean, thanks for being at Texas Talk.

Thanks.

Thanks for having me.

I think is this your 22nd year now broadcasting Spurs games?

I think that's right.

I think so, yeah.

I retired to no one.

So, yeah.

Did you ever envision when you.

I think you signed a two year contract when you first started broadcasting and you probably still had some questions about whether you might have an interest in playing again.

Did you ever envision you'd be doing it this long broadcasting?

I didn't I didn't look this far to the future.

And you're exactly right.

I think for the first two years or so, three years after I retired, I had these visions or notions that I was going to get myself in shape and come back and play just like probably any other athlete.

You just you've been doing something for so long that you you miss it and you need to fill that void.

So I just for me, it was hard to really let go.

How long did it take you?

A long time.

One time I told a group yesterday that I was talking to maybe it's been maybe three or four years now where I haven't woken up at one point and panicked that I was late for practice.

Wow.

You know where I wake up and go?

I'm late for practice.

Here I am.

You know, I'm 54 years old.

Even was 50.

I was having those kind of, you know, those mornings.

And so that was just kind of hard to get out of that pattern.

I feel better now about the nightmares I have about being late for my final.

I still have them, you know, like decades later.

Right.

I really want to talk about how the Spurs are during the season, but before that I wanted to ask, get your thoughts on a story that's been in the news a lot, which is that on October 28th the Spurs waived Josh Primo as their number one pick.

In 2021, he was the 12th pick in the draft.

Six days later, Doctor Hilary Carson, who was the team's former psychologist, filed a lawsuit against Josh Primo and the Spurs and said that he had exposed himself to her during their private sessions and that she alleged that the team didn't do enough to address her concerns.

What were your what was your first reaction when you heard about him being waived and the reason for him being away?

Well, when I first heard, I was just heartbroken, heartbroken because I've interacted with him a couple of times, just, you know, really sweet young man, you know.

So that was kind of caught me off guard as well as a lot of people.

But you just never know all the facts.

And, you know, I still know, you know, about as much as you do.

Yeah, honestly.

Sure.

But I will say that, you know, known or been a part of this organization for 30 years.

I've always, always known R.C.

in part to err on the side of doing the right thing all the time.

You know, I know the character of those guys, and I know what they put.

They put people first and they put the community first.

And so I know in my heart that those two guys did all that they could.

I just I know that I've been around them too long.

I know the integrity and the character of them.

So I for me, I just wait to see, you know, all the facts before, you know, I would rush to judgment.

But obviously, you know, the team had high hopes for him.

Were do you with the other players on the team shaken by what happened or have you what kind of reaction have you seen from them?

Well, I'm sure, you know, I haven't been around them since then.

We haven't traveled together, I believe, since then.

So, you know, I've.

And for me also, Gilbert, you know, I the all these players are really young now.

So it's not like, you know, I'm on the on the team plane and Tony walks back or Monica sure.

Walks back to the back and Tim and, you know, we mess around and, you know, I can talk to those guys for a second.

So for me, I just, you know, give them their space.

So I'm not sure exactly how they're taking it, but I would say if it was if I was on the team, I would be a little, you know, shaken.

And because it's it's one of your guys, it's one of your teammates.

And by all accounts, when you look at this team, everybody's out for each other, that they're a good group of guys.

They really care and love each other.

And you can see that, by the way, they play on the court.

So I'm sure that they're affected.

They got off to a five and two start, which I think surprised a lot of people.

They've hit a rough patch since then, but I think overall they probably exceeded the expectations that a lot of people in the media had about them.

What what do you like about what what you're seeing from this team so far this season?

I just think their chemistry and their competitiveness, those are the biggest things.

And yeah, they have surprised a lot of people.

It surprised me, to be honest with you.

But I think there are some reasons why obviously, you know, obviously their chemistry is really good.

They compete every single game.

But the improvement by so many guys across the board, I feel as responsible for the way we've played so far.

Tre Jones has been great, better than you know, a lot of people think he is.

Keldon Johnson's going to go on to the next level, same thing with them so and then you know Jeremy so has been a. I was going to ask you.

A great.

Surprise I can sense I mean he's he's a rookie that I think a lot of people have high hopes for.

And I can sense that when he does something good and he had some good moments in that Memphis game a couple of nights ago, I know you get you getting some enjoyment out of watching.

Yeah.

You know, I just have to keep reminding myself that he's a rookie and how I was as a rookie, you know, coming into this league and what he's shown, he's showing you a little something every game.

They'll do something more and more every game.

And that's what you'd expect out of a guy who's trying to find his way, trying to defer a little bit to the veterans.

You know, it's rare that a rookie comes in and grabs the team by the reins and he's going to take over, especially when you've only played a couple of years of college basketball.

So what we're seeing out of him is pretty remarkable.

And then you can see game by game why he was taken so high.

He's already already he's a really good defender already.

And and he's still learning learning the nuances of the game.

He hasn't faced all the top offensive players in the league.

Once you faced those guys a few times, you start to figure things out a little bit more and more.

You figure out how to defend them better.

So he's doing that.

It's turn defense and offense is bringing a lot of energy and he's a lot more athletic than he looks too.

So he's just been a really pleasant surprise for all of us.

You know, in the off season, the Spurs traded Dejounte Murray, who's their best player.

It clearly was not a short term move.

Did it make sense to you as as a long term move, given, you know, just the the the financial sort of structure of the NBA and what teams are dealing.

With, I think financially and team building.

Dejounte was a really good player, no question about it.

But I think when you look at where we were the last 5 to 6 years or so, just kind of treading water, you know.

And when you looked at the roster, we had really good players.

But did we have another Manu, another Tim, another Tony?

We didn't have that.

And so at what point do you say, all right, we we're going to be here, you know, seven, eight, nine the whole time for the next five or six years, or we're going to go out and see if we can get some draft capital, which the Spurs did very nicely.

We have a lot of draft picks going forward and then you can see if you can get some higher draft picks and maybe you can find, you know, the next two or three guys that can become the cornerstone of your team.

And it looks like we've at least filed a couple of them.

Yeah.

As you know, there were there have been people in the media who've who've actually advocated for the idea of the Spurs tanking this season with the idea of kind of setting themselves up.

For a.

Good place in the draft.

I mean, you know, of course, much better than I would.

I don't think players tank I think many organizations have done that sometimes.

Right.

Is it something that you think is is a good eye ever a good idea for a team?

It would be wisdom.

Is it?

I don't think it's ever good idea because you're trying to establish a culture and the last thing you want to do is encourage your team to lose because it's going to carry forward.

And you see a lot of these teams that have tanked supposedly taking you over all these years and they still haven't reached the pinnacle.

And so you want to constantly reinforce being competitive and winning, and you can't ask the players to go out there and play poorly.

You know, that's against their nature.

And so guys want to go out and they want to represent themselves well.

And the fact that you have a team now here in San Antonio, like I said earlier, that, you know, it's apparent that these guys enjoy being around each other and they play for each other.

You there's no way anybody can ask them to lose.

So, you know, the organization had to put up major roadblocks, these guys, from being competitive, going out there every night, trying to win games.

But one of the arguments for it this year is has to do with Victor Wemba Inyama, you know, the French phenom, who I think everyone expects to be the first pick in the draft and what he seems like one of those, you know, once in a generation type players.

Is that your impression of him?

Yes.

I mean, I'm my jaw drops when I watch him play just like anybody else.

You know, guys that are seven four are not supposed to have a ball like that move that way.

It's just it's really unnatural.

And then you hear other things from the guys that have been here before, the French players that have been here before, that have interacted with them and see what an amazing person he is already at 19 years old.

And so, you know, we all think you know, I look at David, I look at him, look at Manu and these guys and I just think about how fortunate we were to get these guys that have that same kind of combination of just being fantastic basketball players and great human beings.

And he just, you know, all of us think that, you know, he'd be a natural fit here, you know?

And so we're all thinking, yeah, he'd be perfect in Spurs, Jersey, but, you know, Indiana thinks the same thing.

Orlando and Sacramento and Houston, they all want him, too.

So it's you know, it would be unbelievable if we were ever to get him.

But if not, you still have to have a strong foundation, a strong culture going forward.

We talked about how you went from the court to the broadcast booth, basically directly from one to the other.

Was there ever a time because you're more things I've enjoyed about watching over the years as a as an analyst is just the way you're going to break down some of the the minutia when it comes to what players are doing.

Did you ever think about coaching?

Was that ever.

Yeah, for for a second.

For for maybe like I mean, when I say a second, a second, you know, the story goes, you know, if you know, people have always told me, why aren't you coaching?

And I love my life.

I love, you know, my lifestyle.

I love not having the pressure because coaches have all this pressure on them.

They're perpetually miserable even when they win the five things that they're not happy about.

So one year I went into Pop's office and he had lost two assistants and Mr. Really Popular.

I've kind of been going back and forth with this and he said, What are you f ing stupid?

Six his exact words Yeah.

Paraphrasing it.

And he said, I'm going to call Claudia in here.

He loves my wife.

And he's like, I'm going to call her here and I'm going interview both of you, and I'm going to let her know how she's never going to see you again, how you're going to be busy and are going to be doing this, and your quality of life is gonna go downhill.

So if that's what you want to do, if you're that crazy, then we'll talk about it.

And I said, you know, popular, right?

Was that it.

Was.

It was.

If I have I have had friends call these guys that played against former teammates that have coached and they all told me that like, you know, that's really not what you want to do.

Yeah.

You came to the Spurs in 1989.

He was third pick in the draft.

You were the all time career scoring leader in the history of the PAC ten, breaking the record by a pretty fair player named Lou Alcindor, who later to become Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

You came from coming from Tucson.

It's it's a place like San Antonio, warm climates, a strong Latino culture.

Did San Antonio feel comfortable to you?

Did it feel familiar to you?

Right.

Or did it take a while?

It felt familiar to me right away.

Yeah.

I used to tell my friends that San Antonio was too soft on steroids.

A bigger version of Tucson.

Yeah.

You know, maybe there's more green here, you know, maybe that's about it.

But the kind of the make up the community is almost the same.

It really is.

And, you know, a lot of people don't realize Tucson's 68 miles from the border.

So there is a big Latino influence.

And, you know, the only difference I would say it was for me, the only adjustment was the style of food.

You know, here it's Tex-Mex.

Yeah, there it's so northern type of foods always have used to burritos and red chili sauce and that kind of thing.

I couldn't find that here when I got here and I still can't find it.

So it's a little bit different.

But you know, the people have that same kind of warmth and that same kind of soul, you know.

So that for me, it was wasn't the big adjustment period.

And when you were really young, you played soccer and I read somewhere that you scored seven goals in one game once.

This was it was this year.

Was this your first love and is that it was that soccer really the spell?

So I did everything.

So soccer in junior high school.

I took my soccer ball to school every day.

Would dribble, dribble all the time.

I was going to be the next.

Pele was also a baseball player.

You know, I was a pitcher.

You know, I loved it and I could hit it.

So I was you know, I thought for a second I'd be a major League Baseball player.

My mom got me this thing called a bat away.

I don't know if you remember that we pitch a little wiffle ball to you.

It was a little plastic machine.

And before school and I was waiting for my ride, I would sit there and hit balls and take swings in my garage.

So I was just that type of kid where I played all kinds of sports and thought, you know, I really thought that I had an opinion either way.

But then when I started playing basketball, I just just started to really fall in love with it.

And that's where I really started to kind of emphasize basketball and play more, practice more.

And here I am.

When when you joined the Spurs, Gregg Popovich was a young this is a relatively young assistant coach.

What what did you make of him when you first met him?

Well, Pop and I you know, it was unique for us because when I first met Pop, I met him on a little hotel shuttle bus.

When I got on to do a a campaign or a caravan through South Texas, Red called us up and wanted us to go drum up some fans support in South Texas.

So I get on this bus and he hears pop and Tim Dirk who is the coyote at the time and we drove down to Laredo, Corpus Brownsville, McGowan, Victoria Del Rio and we were doing clinics in the parking lots of ATVs, you know, teaching kids how to play basketball and, you know, and in July and August.

So, you know, we kind of forged a friendship then and then we did it again the next year.

And so for like my rookie year and that second year, pop was like my my confidant or my, you know, my crutch when things weren't going right, I could talk to him and he could reassure me.

And, you know, if I had complaints about Larry or, you know, you know, they're like, well, you know, I'm not getting the ball or, you know, Larry's on my butt all the time and I could talk to Pop.

He was the guy that I could go to.

And so, you know, we we were both were kind of in the same boat.

We didn't we came from nothing.

We didn't have a lot of money at the time.

Yeah.

And, you know, we formed a friendship.

And there was an interesting period in your career and you got to Detroit for Dennis Rodman and then you almost you almost retreated to Houston, right then that that was scuttled because of the physical which I think revealed know the the that you had a kidney ailment was that period was that really when you realized that there was an issue with your kidneys?

Or did you.

Realize at the end of the the 92, 93 season, it was right after we lost the Phenix.

Mm hmm.

And of course, depressed.

You know, I thought that we could beat them.

Yeah.

And so for the next two or three weeks, I went on vacation.

I was with friends.

I didn't feel very good.

I was having trouble getting out of bed every day and a lot of swelling in my hands and feet.

So that's when I finally decided to go the doctor, and they discovered that something was wrong.

But that was from then on.

From that time, all the way until 1999, I played with kidney disease.

How tough was that?

That nine nine season we all remember was the first Spurs first championship season.

You played a key role in that.

And everyone, I just saw the memorial, the miracle game a few months ago again and just kind of marveling not only at the shot, but everything you did.

We kind of leading up to that shot.

And in the final moments of the game, were you were you really struggling physically at that time?

Was it was it difficult for you to get through that season?

It wasn't at first I came in, I thought I was in really good shape, was coming back from a couple of knee injuries and really rehabbed, really hard just to get back.

But as that season progressed, I was getting a little bit more lethargic and tired.

But for me, you know, after I went to the doctor and he said, Well, hey, you, we got to start thinking about a transplant this March of 99.

You know, during the season, I just for me, basketball was my escape away from the court.

I would think about that all the time.

But on the court, I just had to take care of business and not think about it.

And so it was you know, it was a it was a trying time because I didn't know if I would ever play again after that season.

And I didn't know if I'd make it to that season.

So for me, I just, you know, just tried to do my best.

Then you are the first player to come back from a kidney transplant was how much were you motivated?

So you wanted to keep playing, but how much were you motivated by just the desire to prove that this is something that could be done?

Well, I've always been like that.

I've always tried to take on the challenge and that just comes back from that goes back to my days of being a kid at Arizona, where people come from Tucson, where people didn't believe that you can you can achieve, you know, a higher goal is kind of like you weren't allowed to dream big.

And so I just always felt like I was challenging myself, you know, throughout my lifetime.

And so this was just another opportunity and one I wanted to prove it to people.

Yes, but I think more importantly, I wanted to prove to myself that I could that I could do it.

And I've always been the type that when I see a challenge ahead of me, I feel like, okay, let's see if I can do this.

You know, I don't get down on myself and, you know, I don't get too discouraged.

I just try to see if I can overcome this obstacle.

And so I was happy to do it, not just for me, but for then.

I realize that there are a lot of people out there that were absolutely into the same thing.

And after my transplant, I mean, virtually every arena that I go to that you're somebody one or two people would walk up to me and say, Hey, I had a transplant.

I saw your story.

You know, thanks for that.

You talked about trying to expand the Spurs fan base when you were a player and going down to the Valley and other other places.

Currently, the team is in the process of trying to do that, playing a couple of games in Austin and again Mexico City.

They're playing a January game at the Alamo Dome, just kind of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the franchise, which is going to be a big night.

Part of that has been nervousness because that's San Antonio.

In San Antonio, always that nervousness about the possibility of the Spurs relocating.

And people worry about Austin.

I don't know if people come up to you and ask you about that, but if they do, I mean, what what is what is your thought on on that?

And we have a Congressman Tony Gonzalez from San Antonio's actually filed a bill that called the Spurs Act.

The acronym is Spurs and trying to which we try to prevent teams in the Spurs situation from from leaving.

I don't think the San Antonio Spurs are going anywhere.

And I firmly believe that.

I believe what they're trying to do is just continue upon that theme of building a bigger fan base from all the way from Austin down to Monterrey in the Mexico City, because we're, you know, the main sport coming along that corridor.

And so you kind of want to just stick your claim to your fans because Austin, I mean, let's be honest, you can't ignore that market.

And there are there are huge Spurs fans out there, too.

There are people that love the Spurs in Austin, absolutely rabid fans.

And you want to keep them engaged.

You want to welcome them into the Spurs family.

And there are people south, you know, going down into the valley and Laredo and and into Monterey and we'll go to Mexico City.

You see a lot of Spurs fans down there, and there's an obvious Latino connection.

And so it behooves you to engage those fans and get them on board as well.

And that's the I'm sure that's the primary goal is not to have this team relocate in Austin.

And Peter Holt, our chairman of the board, just came out and said, you know, you wrote a letter to for life and if you see him in action, he's very impressive, you know, that the team's in great hands.

And I'm sure that he's going to keep his word.

We just have a little bit of time left.

But you know, I mentioned the Alamodome game in January.

You played a lot of your career in the Alamo Dome.

Your what how big a night you think that's going to be for the Spurs to go back and play that game?

I hope that it's everything that we hope it's going to be, because I'm sure that the city is going to turn.

Out as it gets Golden State.

Gets Gold State, which makes it a lot more fun for.

But I think that 65,000 people or how many we can get in the building, I think that's entirely possible.

There are a lot of people that in the city that love the team and been Spurs fans for years that still haven't gotten a chance to go to a Spurs game.

And this is an excellent opportunity and to be a part of history.

And so I don't think that there's any doubt that it's going to be a special night.

You know.

One thing I was curious about was and I don't know if you going to want to answer this, but did you have a favorite teammates during your.

Your time with this?

I had lots of favorite teammates, yeah.

I mean, when I was a rookie, David Robinson, I lived literally across the street from each other.

It wasn't even a street.

It was a drive.

And you know, Dave and I were able to bond.

He's been one of my all time favorites, Steve Kerr, since I played with him in college.

Or, you know, if I really enjoyed having Lee Rose and Timmy on the team, I love playing with those guys, you know, was a better player because of Avery Johnson and his fire and enthusiasm.

I mean, I'm probably forgetting a bunch of guys and just it's hard when people ask me that because, you know, it's that question a lot of times, right, that so many great teammates that it would be impossible just to pick out one.

I've been fortunate to be here and have, you know, so many great guys around me.

So thank you so much for being Bird's exit.

So it's my pleasure.

That's all for this edition of Texas Talk.

Thanks for watching.

If you want to share your thoughts with us, please email us at Texas Talk and Tailor.

We'll be back next month with a new guest.

Until then, take care.