The Spurs began defense of their 2003 NBA championship in a North Side conference room this summer, barely one month after their festive River Walk celebration.

General manager R.C. Buford watched Tim Duncan walk into the team's practice facility on the rain-soaked afternoon of July 16, then handed him a pen and a $122 million, seven-year contract.

That same day, the Spurs plucked Rasho Nesterovic out of Minnesota and handed him David Robinson's old job. When Stephen Jackson balked at a $10 million offer one week later, they quickly traded for Ron Mercer and Hedo Turkoglu. After Steve Kerr retired in August with five championship rings, Robert Horry arrived from Los Angeles with five of his own.

Yet for all the talent the Spurs added this summer, they may long regret the loss of one of their largest icons: Jimmy Chang.

When Mengke Bateer signed with Toronto, he took Chang, the Spurs' prodigious self-described "language consultant," with him.

That leaves coach Gregg Popovich as the team's resident linguist when training camp opens today, an unenviable job considering no fewer than seven foreign countries will be represented on the 18-player roster: France (Tony Parker), Argentina (Manu Ginobili), Slovenia (Nesterovic), Turkey (Turkoglu), New Zealand (Sean Marks), Yugoslavia (Igor Rakocevic) and Brazil (Alex Garcia).