• George Hill on the new San Antonio Spurs uniforms: “It looks pretty good, they say if you look good, you play good. A little tighter, little smaller,
they’re very light, hopefully I’ll get to run a lot faster.”
• Manu Ginobili on going from a starter to the bench, back to a starter…
“(The importance of starting) is not a Europe thing, it’s more of an American thing. I just want to end the games and win.”
Ginobili appears to be in great shape after not playing this offseason. He seems slimmer, has made his drills look very easy in training camp and got some oohs and aahs yesterday. In a drill where Spurs players were finishing with floaters and layups over an outstretched pole, Ginobili put an exclamation point on it with a dunk with some authority.
• While Trey Gilder was rumored to be on the training camp roster, he was not at media day or the first day of training camp. If he was going to be on the roster, it’s likely that the addition of Bobby Simmons changed that.
Simmons will give Alonzo Gee and James Anderson some competition for the backup small forward battle. He looks like he’s in good shape and has impressed Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.
“Bobby has been impressive because he came without a guarantee,” Popovich said. “He wanted to show that he’s better than what the conventional wisdom is out there.”
• Most of the players seem to think Richard Jefferson will shake off any first-year rust this season.
“When you come in that first year, you put pressure on yourself,” said Antonio McDyess, who, like Jefferson, is coming into his second season with the Spurs. “You have some players here that have won four championships, so you kind of put pressure on yourself.”
