Ten jerseys hang above the court in the AT&T Center in San Antonio now that Tony Parker’s number was recently retired, but there are plenty of others who made an impact on this city’s franchise and fan base. There are superstars and role players, fan favorites and “Oh yeah, I remember that guy” guys. It’s a long list, longer than the Spurs 171-166 win in triple OT against the Bucks in March 1982.
So … that’s why I’m splitting it into two pieces. Here’s Part 1, from Johnny Moore to Manu Ginobili. Part 2 will arrive Wednesday.
No. 00* — Johnny Moore
The double-zero jersey is the best, and only one hangs in the rafters in the AT&T Center.
Moore wasn’t a superstar, but he was the point guard who led the Spurs through the lean years after George Gervin retired and they waited on the arrival of David Robinson. He was one of only 10 players in league history to wear the No. 00, and he was also one of only seven players in league history to record three 20-assist games. I’m not sure which is more impressive: the assist stat or that he had nine or more steals in a game twice in his career. In any case, his number was the third to be retired in Spurs history, and outside of Drew Gooden (did y’all remember he played in San Antonio?), who wore the No. 90, perhaps the most distinctive jersey number in franchise history.
* — Number retired
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No. 1 — Lonnie Walker IV
There never really was a great No. 1 in Spurs history, but a few players made their impact along the way. Rod Strickland averaged 13.9 points and 8.2 assists playing alongside prime David Robinson. His best scoring years came later, particularly after his move to Portland, but he was a solid point guard to pair with The Admiral. He never made an All-Star team, but he was always one of those guys who were on the fringes looking in. A good scorer and assist man, he also had his best steal totals while playing in San Antonio. So there’s one candidate.
Perhaps only hardcore Spurs fans will remember this, but another No. 1 was Derek Anderson. The Spurs were really good in 2001, with legitimate title hopes … and then Anderson went down. The Spurs’ second-leading scorer that season (behind Tim Duncan, of course) was fouled hard by Juwan Howard in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals while on a fast break. He was flipped sideways in the air and landed directly on his right shoulder, separating it and effectively ending his and San Antonio’s season. He spent just that one season with the Spurs, so it was a shame to see it end that way.
And now for the Spurs fans’ favorite, Lonnie Walker IV. Here’s basically all we know at this point in the 21-year-old’s career: He’s athletic as hell, he loves to attack the rim, he plays hard, and he makes quite a few mistakes. Still, the kid has a ton of talent; we just don’t know what he’s going to be quite yet. Behind the scenes, he works hard, but he’s goofy — really just a fun-loving guy who loves to learn. There’s no question he has the potential to be a very good player (likely better than the two mentioned above), but we just don’t know how far he can rise yet. Just be patient. His time will come.
Other notable Spurs who wore the number: Strickland, Cory Alexander, Howard Eisley, Anderson.
No. 2 — Kawhi Leonard
I know most Spurs fans will never forgive him for the way things ended, but there wasn’t a better No. 2 in San Antonio’s history. And it was fun watching him grow from a simple 3-and-D guy to an eventual MVP candidate and Finals MVP. He may have been a little quirky, quiet and shut off, but once he grew into his game I don’t think anyone cared all that much about that. He became arguably the best two-way player in the game, and the way he could take over on both ends was a sight to behold.
His legacy in San Antonio was supposed to be different. He was always viewed as the perfect Spur: quiet, didn’t want the spotlight, worked hard. I remember watching him at shootarounds, working on every single move and shot you see him take now. You’d watch him working on his pull-up, then his jab step or pump-fake-and-drive, then his fadeaway, but you never really saw it in a game until maybe months later. I always described it to people as building blocks. Once he finished one project, you’d begin to see it in real time weeks and months later. It was a process, and he was dedicated to it.
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But the one thing that concerned people around the team and those who covered it was his ability to be a leader. He was supposed to be the heir apparent to Tim Duncan as the face of the franchise, but that never seemed to show. He was nothing like Timmy in that regard. What happened with Kawhi seemed similar to the Anthony Davis thing in New Orleans last season (to me, at least), just without all the fanfare. He was cleared to play but made his own choices. It was clear he wanted to be back home, and I knew from the start it would be only one year in Toronto.
Leonard’s departure hurt the Spurs immeasurably for the foreseeable future. San Antonio tried everything it could to mend fences, but it just wasn’t happening, and the Raptors deal was essentially the only one on the table when all was said and done. Regardless, without him the Spurs wouldn’t have that fifth championship. So there’s something you can always look back on.
Other notable Spurs who wore the number: Moses Malone, Jaren Jackson, Nazr Mohammed.
No. 3 — Stephen Jackson
Captain Jack had a tough departure at the end, but he was unquestionably a huge part of the 2003 title team. Keldon Johnson dons that number now, and the Spurs are high on him. Still, for now, Jackson is who you think of when you think about No. 3 in a Spurs jersey.
Other notable Spurs who wore the number: Dale Ellis, Monty Williams, Damon Stoudamire, George Hill, Marco Belinelli (during his first Spurs stint).
No. 4 — Steve Kerr
He wasn’t in San Antonio long, but (whew!) did he make a lasting impact. In Game 6 of the 2003 Western Conference finals, the Spurs outscored the Dallas Mavericks once Kerr entered the game. He hit four 3-pointers in the fourth quarter. I remember sitting in my friend’s basem*nt with about a dozen other people, watching this game. Mostly Spurs fans, but some Mavs fans. It’s crazy how different sports and even individual games can bring people together. That series in general was intense, but that game was something else entirely. Kerr being resurrected and Gregg Popovich having the confidence to put him in after he hadn’t played a minute in the game — it was a thing of beauty.
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Other notable Spurs who wore the number: Michael Finley, Danny Green (before he switched to No. 14), Derrick White.
No. 5 — Robert Horry
Without “Big Shot Bob,” there may not have been a 2005 championship. Horry scored 21 points in the fourth quarter and overtime of the pivotal Game 5 in Detroit to send the Spurs back home with a 3-2 series lead, and he capped that game with one of the biggest shots in team history.
Never leave the inbounder, especially if it’s Horry in a clutch situation. The Spurs went on to win an intense seven-game series, and without that shot it may never have happened.
Other notable Spurs who wore the number: Dell Demps, Ime Udoka, Cory Joseph, Dejounte Murray.
No. 6 — Avery Johnson*
This is an easy one. The Little General made perhaps the biggest shot in the franchise’s history — well, maybe the second-biggest, depending on whom you ask. Regardless, Johnson sealed the first title in Spurs history with a baseline jumper on the left side. As with the aforementioned Kerr game, I remember exactly where I was when that shot went down — sitting in a conference room at Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium with a bunch of other University of Texas basketball campers. Ah, basketball camp. Living in dorms when you’re like 13 years old. But I remember it like it was yesterday. The game was on a giant projection screen, and everyone went crazy. Nobody could sleep that night.
* — Number retired. Other notable Spurs who wore the number: Walter Berry.
No. 7 — Fabricio Oberto
He was no NBA star, save for in his home country, but he was the definition of “glue guy.” And not just on the court. He was a wonderful teammate and is a great human being. He won only one title with the Spurs, but his international contributions with the Argentine national team will likely be his legacy. Also, he’s the nicest guy ever.
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Other notable Spurs who wore the number: J.R. Reid, Carl Herrera.
No. 8 — Patty Mills
I thought about going with Steve Smith, but it’s easily Mills. He signed with the Spurs in late March during the lockout-shortened season in 2011-12 after playing overseas. He was a flier the Spurs took a chance on, and now, eight years later, he’s the team’s leader in the locker room, and at 31 years old, he was having one of the best seasons of his career when the NBA suspended games.
Other notable Spurs who wore the number: Rasho Nesterovic, Roger Mason Jr.
No. 9* — Tony Parker
Not exactly a surprise. I remember thinking when the Spurs drafted TP, “Who the (bleep) is this guy?” Then, five games into the season, he was starting. Then he was roasting Gary Payton, The Glove, during the playoffs at 19 years old. He didn’t develop a jumper until later in his career, but he didn’t even need one at first. He was so damn fast. His footwork was incredible. His ability to get into you and fly by you or stop on a dime and drop off the teardrop — it was unbelievable and completely unexpected. Like the many international teammates he played alongside, he was a maestro.
* — Number retired. Other notable Spurs who wore the number: (crickets).
No. 10 — Dennis Rodman
I kind of just did this for the fun of it. Things obviously didn’t work out well between Pop and someone nicknamed “The Worm,” but the dude is one of the best defenders and rebounders to ever play. Maybe DeMar DeRozan takes the No. 10 mantle eventually, but I’m going with Rodman. Maybe a weird choice, but that dude was unreal.
Other notable Spurs who wore the number: Johnny Moore (briefly), Mike Dunleavy, Maurice Cheeks, David Lee, DeRozan.
No. 11 — Bryn Forbes
This is a tricky one. You could go with Vernon Maxwell, who spent his first year and a half with the Spurs before being traded to the Houston Rockets, where he spent most of his playing days before returning to San Antonio for one season. You could go with Jacque Vaughn, who played a few solid seasons as a backup point guard to Tony Parker, but he was just a “bring it up the floor, give it to someone else and play defense guy” who really didn’t put up any numbers.
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So I’m going with what’s fresh: Forbes. Aside from the fact he’s a great shooter and has improved his offensive game, strength and athleticism every year he’s been in the league (we don’t have to talk about his defense), this is a kid who went undrafted and earned a spot on the roster out of Summer League. Now he’s the starting shooting guard for a team that doesn’t have a ton of shooting. Defenses have to account for him on the perimeter at all times, and now he’s developed a drive-and-float game he did not have early in his career. The No. 11 doesn’t have a rich history in San Antonio, but Forbes is a great story and, if the roster were a bit different, would be a great guy to bring off the bench. Still, he’s held down that starting spot all season, and for an undrafted player in his fourth year, that’s pretty impressive.
Other notable Spurs who wore the number: Maxwell, Vaughn, T.J. Ford.
No. 12 — LaMarcus Aldridge
He hasn’t been a career-long Spur or anything, but he’s been around for a while now and he’s also a native Texan. That counts for something, yeah? And unless his career takes a significant downturn, he’ll likely end up with 20,000 points and 10,000 rebounds. A lot of people argue about it for some reason, but he’s a surefire Hall of Famer.
Other notable Spurs who wore the number: Bruce Bowen (whose No. 12 is retired).
You might ask yourself why Aldridge is wearing Bowen’s retired number. When Aldridge arrived in San Antonio, Bowen wanted him to feel “part of the family” and to “feel comfortable.” So Bowen gave Aldridge his blessing to wear his old number. There you have it.
No. 13* — James Silas
Another Spur with a jersey in the rafters, Silas was the first to have his number retired by the franchise. He bridged the ABA-NBA gap for the organization that eventually became the Spurs. He was no superstar, averaging just 16.1 points, 3.8 assists and 3.0 rebounds per game for his career. What’s more important is he was with the franchise when it moved to San Antonio. Silas represents a major period in Spurs history.
* — Number retired. Other notable Spurs to wear the number: Gene Phillips, who never played for the franchise when it moved to San Antonio and averaged 2.5 points per game in two ABA seasons.
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No. 14 — Danny Green
Much like Patty Mills, Green was a scrap-heap guy who made his rounds. He turned into one of the best 3-and-D guys in the league by the time he adjusted in San Antonio. He set a Finals record for 3-pointers in 2013, passing Ray Allen’s number before Steph Curry reset that record (because of course Steph did). He was beloved in San Antonio, and fans were understandably saddened he was thrown into the Kawhi Leonard trade for the salaries to match. Green was a great story: a relative no-name who eventually became an All-NBA defensive player with a deadly 3-point shot and one of the best chase-down shot-blocking guards we’ve seen in a long time.
Other notable Spurs who wore the number: Hedo Türkoglu, Beno Udrih, Gary Neal.
No. 15 — Matt Bonner
It’s not like the numbers pop, save for his career 41 percent 3-point shooting. But once he arrived in San Antonio, the Red Mamba (or the Red Rocket, if you prefer) was a fan and locker room favorite. His shot-put style of shooting was unorthodox, but it worked. And he was a big man shooting 3s before it became mainstream. He once told me his dad talked him into learning how to shoot from the 3-point line as a kid because that’s where his game would translate best. At that time, if you were a big dude (Bonner is 6-foot-10), you were supposed to play inside. But he took the advice and ran with it. Also, did you know the Red Mamba once won a dunk contest in high school?
And he was great off the court as well. He is one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met covering the NBA. We all know about his fascination with sandwich-hunting, but did you know he once starred in “Cribs”?
Easily the best No. 15 in Spurs history.
Other notable Spurs who wore the number: John Lucas, Avery Johnson (during his first stint with the Spurs), Vinnie Johnson, Vinny Del Negro.
No. 16 — Pau Gasol
As with No. 11, there’s not a lot to choose from in this category. The only other option would be Aaron Baynes, but Gasol had the pedigree and was actually pretty solid during his first two years in San Antonio. He averaged more 3-point attempts during those two seasons than in any of his previous 17 seasons in the NBA and made them at a decent clip. The Spurs made the choice to go big when everyone else was going small, and they had a plan they really thought would work against the Golden State Warriors in the 2017 Western Conference Finals. When the Warriors went to their “Death Lineup” with Draymond Green at center, the Spurs were just going to beat them up inside. And it was working. Golden State could not keep the Spurs off the glass, and then Kawhi Leonard got going. San Antonio built a 23-point lead in the third quarter before Leonard landed on Zaza Pachulia’s giant foot. Then, just like that, it was over.
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Gasol’s time with the Spurs was brief, and he went into a steep decline. He was already in decline when he arrived in San Antonio, but he became virtually unplayable. He finished in Milwaukee, where he played only three games before signing with the Portland Trail Blazers before the 2019-20 season. He didn’t play a game for Portland. He’s had a hell of a career, though.
Other notable Spurs who wore the number: Baynes.
No. 17 — Brent Barry
The 1996 Slam Dunk champion takes this spot. That feels so weird to say. Here’s proof.
Barry played four seasons in San Antonio and was just one of the many dependable role players who came off the bench to help the Spurs win titles. His main job was to stretch the floor (he shot more 3s than 2s while in San Antonio), and he was damn good at it. The lowest percentage he shot from behind the arc was during his first season as a Spur, 35.7 percent. After that, the percentages were 39.6, 44.6 and 42.9. He was just reliable and still calls San Antonio home.
Other notable Spurs who wore the number: Mario Elie, Charlie Ward, Jonathon Simmons.
No. 18 — Marco Belinelli
Some of these numbers, man — not a ton to choose from.
Belinelli is not having his best year thus far, to say the least, but he was instrumental during the Spurs’ 2014 title run. He shot a career-high 43 percent from 3 that season, the best number of his career (he has eclipsed the 40 percent mark from 3 just one other time). One shot, in particular, comes to mind with Belinelli. In Game 3 of the 2014 Finals in Miami, when the Spurs had that ridiculous first half and it looked like it was going to be a blowout, the Heat started to come back. And I mean quickly. It was one of those “Oh boy, here we go” moments. Miami cut the lead to seven, and the arena was going nuts. Then Belinelli pulled up and knocked down a 3 to put the lead back to 10 points, and you could just hear the wind come out of American Airlines Arena.
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It was a major turning point in that game, because when that Heat team started charging, it was like a freight train. That shot gave the momentum back to San Antonio, and the Spurs ended up with a comfortable win.
Other notable Spurs who wore the number: I got nothing.
No. 19 — Luka Šamanić
Easy choice: The only No. 19 in Spurs history, Šamanić, a rookie who has played a grand total of 12 minutes this season, has three assists, two rebounds and zero points. He is averaging 15.2 points, 7.8 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game in 33 G League games, though. That’s something, right?
No. 20* — Manu Ginobili
One night in Houston after a game, a couple of us were talking to Ginobili about the night he was drafted. He told us he was playing in a tiny town in Brazil and had no idea he had been drafted by the Spurs that night. He wasn’t quite sure of the town’s name, but he had a vague memory of it. He leaned over to his Brazilian teammate Tiago Splitter and asked if he knew where the town was and if he got the name right. Splitter thought for a second, then said, “I have no idea.” That tells you a lot about the journeys international players go through. He went to sleep on that night in June 1999 not knowing he’d been drafted by the NBA champions. And now his jersey his hanging in the AT&T Center rafters.
The next guy on this list was the cornerstone of the Spurs’ era of dominance, but you can argue Ginobili was the most popular Spur ever, not to mention the most popular Argentine player ever, especially after beating the United States in the 2004 Athens Olympics en route to the gold medal. His style of play, his intensity, his propensity for making huge, impossible shots when they were needed most — he was just different. He made passes that seemed impossible; I don’t know how many times he dropped the ball to a cutter between a defender’s legs, or how many times he’d throw a rocket that somehow got past the outstretched arms of two or three guys directly in his line of vision, or spun a bounce pass from 50 feet away through all sorts of traffic to a man right under the basket.
Then, of course, there was the “Hammer Play,” when Ginobili would dribble to one side of the court and either drive to set it up or, if a second defender came over to help, would drift toward the corner. Meanwhile, a shooter on the opposite wing would get a back screen from one of the bigs on the floor and float to the opposite corner as Ginobili would whip the pass all the way across the court, corner to corner, for the open 3-pointer. Those passes almost seemed to curve out of bounds and back inside the baseline. It was as if his passes defied physics. He and Boris Diaw were the only ones who could really run that play with consistency. The Spurs don’t run it as often anymore, unless it’s coming from the opposite block, making it a shorter, easier pass. It’s such a difficult, dangerous pass to make, and there’s certainly nobody on the current roster who can pull it off from the opposite corner.
Popovich was and still is all about discipline, but Ginobili played with a flair San Antonio had never seen before. Pop had him caged early in his career because he had no idea how to handle his wild game, but once the coach uncaged him and realized he just needed to let him do his thing, the rest was history.
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The other thing about Ginobili was his willingness to come off the bench. He started plenty of games, but he’ll always be remembered as one of the greatest sixth men of all time. Throughout all the Spurs’ success over two decades, the bench units were always killer with Ginobili running the show. He always entered the game around the six-minute mark of the first quarter, and every time he did, the fans went wild. San Antonio’s population is majority Hispanic, and there was an obvious connection he had with the city because of that. But everyone loved him regardless of race or culture. He was just so fun to watch.
* — Number retired. Other notable Spurs to wear the number: Gene Banks? (I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever heard that name before, but he was pretty solid in his four years wearing the No. 20.)
(Photo: Mark Sobhani / NBAE via Getty Images)
