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| James Silas was one of the Spurs first ever Superstar players. |
The San Antonio Spurs played their first game as an NBA franchise versus the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers on October 22, 1976, winning the game 121-118.
Silas, coming off the broken ankle suffered in the ABA playoffs the year before, injured his knee prior to the season, and missed the first 60 games. Has Slias been healthy the Spurs might have done even better than the impressive 44-38 record their first season.
The 44-38 record was good enough for sixth best in the entire league, but again the Spurs were swept out of the first round by the Boston Celtics.
Overall, the first season in the NBA was a rousing success, Gervin finished ninth in the league in scoring, showing shades of the scoring machine he would become, at just over 23 points per game. The Spurs also had the most explosive offense in the NBA, and about 115 points per game.
The 1977-78 season got off to a less than stellar start for the Spurs. Gale, George Karl, and Silas all suffered early season injuries that sidelined them for significant amounts of time, and the Spurs were just 16-14 after the first two months of the season. However, the entire team, with the exception of Silas, was healthy by the beginning of 1978 and the team finished the season on a tear, going 30-9 the rest of the way to finish with an impressive 52-30 record.
The big news late in the season was George Gervin. The Iceman had battled David Thompson of the Nuggets the entire season for the NBA scoring title, and it came all the way down to the final day of the season.
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| George Gervin was deadly in the open court. |
The Spurs played a late game that day so Gervin knew exactly how much he needed to take the scoring title away from Thompson, 58 points.
He started chasing the title at a furious pace early on in the game, opening up with a 20 point first quarter, and was even more impressive in the second quarter, blistering New Orleans for 33 more. He went into halftime with an eye-popping 53 points, just 5 shy of the total he needed to capture the scoring title, and at that pace, even Chamberlains 100 point single game record seemed within reach.
The Iceman came out of halftime and scored 6 points in the first two minutes to take the scoring crown, and coach Doug Moe pulled him from the game to a standing ovation, alas, Chamberlains record was never in danger, as Gervin toned down his game and scored just 4 more points the rest of the way, finishing with 63, completing one of the closest scoring races in NBA history.
However, all of Gervin's scoring got the Spurs virtually nowhere in the playoffs, they were beaten in 6 games in the first round of the playoffs by heavy underdog Washington.
The 1978-79 season started off with a bang, as the Spurs routed the Milwaukee Bucks by 42 points, 153-111. Things slowed down after that with the team getting off to a mediocre 14-14 start.
It was at this point that James Silas finally rejoined the team. He had missed about 2 years following a serious knee injury and surgery. After his return, Silas and Gervin led the Spurs to a 34-20 finish and an overall record of 48-34, grabbing the Central Division crown for the second consecutive year, one game ahead of the Houston Rockets.
The Spurs advanced all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. Facing the Washington Bullets the Spurs took a commanding three games to one lead in the series and seemed a lock to make the NBA Finals. However, the Bullets went on a tear the last three games of the series, defeating the Spurs in seven games and advancing to face Seattle in the Finals.
Article by Michael Bonner
