Meet in the hotel lobby at 9:30 a.m. Bring hiking boots or gym shoes. Wear old clothes. Get on the bus parked outside.

Those were Gregg Popovich's instructions. No practice. Just meet in the lobby.

The Spurs knew little else. Their coach was canceling workouts only four days into training camp and telling them to dress for The Nature Channel, and no one could figure out why.

When the players followed the cryptic orders and showed up the following morning, not a single coach was in attendance. After the bus deposited them in a wooded area just outside the city limits, they were even more puzzled.

"We didn't have a clue what was going on," Antonio Daniels said. "I thought we were going to play paint ball or something."