One of the most stressful episodes of James Borrego’s working life occurred on May 5, 2004.
The San Antonio Spurs were facing the Los Angles Lakers in a second-round playoff game that night, and Borrego, in his first season as a Spurs assistant video coordinator, was responsible for cataloging each play on a computer to make specific video clips available for Spurs coaches and players to review at halftime.
Everything was going well until late in the second quarter.
Then, without warning, Borrego’s computer crashed.
And when halftime arrived, Borrego — then in his mid-20s — was forced to tell Gregg Popovich and the Spurs coaching staff that he had no video clips for them.
“There were moments there of stress, and you had to figure it out,” Borrego said. “You had to find a way to get them what they wanted to see. But for the most part, we did all right.”
Borrego’s experience as a Spurs video coordinator played a central role in his development and continues to help him now in his current role as the Orlando Magic’s interim coach. Working as a video coordinator taught him how to handle pressure and how to make X’s-and-O’s adjustments on the fly.
Those lessons might serve him well on Wednesday night when the Magic host the Spurs at Amway Center. Although Borrego has faced San Antonio as an assistant coach before, Wednesday’s game will be the first time he has faced the Spurs as a head coach.
The Atlanta Hawks’ Mike Budenholzer, the Indiana Pacers’ Frank Vogel and the Miami Heat’s Erik Spoelstra got their starts in the NBA as video coordinators.
The experience shaped all of them.
“I study a lot of film preparing for teams and analyzing our games postgame,” Vogel said. “That’s where all the answers are.”
Still, life as an NBA video coordinator is anything but glamorous.
It typically requires you to spend hours and hours and hours in front of a computer screen.
“You have to have a great work ethic to come up through the video room,” Spoelstra said. “You learn the league. You learn how to scout. You learn how to prepare. You learn tendencies. And if you work for the right organizations, you see what winning teams do.
“A video position seemingly always has a direct contact to the head coach. Preparation is always important, not only for scouting but for your own team and teaching tools for the next day.”
Borrego developed a rapport with Popovich.
“I learned a tremendous amount,” Borrego said. “I was so fortunate to even get a few minutes with him my first year, and he didn’t even know my name. But as the year went along, we spent more time in the film room together, just Pop and I one-on-one watching film. I would say nothing. He would watch. And slowly but surely, he’d begin to ask me questions. We’d talk basketball. Our relationship just continued to grow. He put me in great positions to grow as a coach, as a basketball individual.”
The Spurs reached the playoffs in every season of Borrego’s seven-year San Antonio tenure. Although he began his time with the Spurs as an assistant video coordinator, he finished as an assistant coach.
“People probably don’t appreciate the pressure that NBA video guys are under,” said Budenholzer, who was a Spurs assistant coach throughout Borrego’s Spurs tenure.
“He handled that with just unbelievable poise. There’s some high-pressure moments there, which I think normal fans wouldn’t have any idea [about]. He just handled it unbelievably well.”
Popovich has won 1,014 regular-season games as a head coach, so no one doubts his X’s-and-O’s skills or his ability to manage people.
But Popovich isn’t technologically savvy.
So Borrego and other Spurs video coordinators throughout the years have had to endure occasional eruptions from Popovich if a computer or a projector or a remote suddenly stopped working.
Budenholzer acknowledged that a broken remote during a team meeting can create a high-pressure moment for a Spurs video coordinator.
“You want to try to explain to [Popovich] if you press it that hard, that many times, it’s not going to work,” Budenholzer said with a smile on his face. “Or by pressing it harder and throwing it, it’s not going to make it work, either. But [Borrego] found a way to communicate those things in just an unbelievably poised and respectful way. We all admired how he could work with Coach Pop. The rest of us didn’t have that same poise or ability.”
Borrego’s relationship with Popovich has endured, and even strengthened, in recent years.
They spoke within the last few days.
“It’s going to be fun to see that group,” Borrego said. “It’s like playing against your family.”
jrobbins@orlandosentinel.com. Read his blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/magicblog and follow him on Twitter at @JoshuaBRobbins.
