"When Richard Jefferson arrived in San Antonio in 2009 after the trade that made him the Spurs' most significant trade acquisition of the 21st century, he heard plenty about the Spurs Way, a different approach to being a part of the silver and black that transcended basketball.

On the eve of the 2010-11 regular-season opener, Jefferson, the Spurs starter at small forward, believes he finally understands what is involved in the Spurs culture.

"I have a much better understanding of what it means and what they want from me," Jefferson said after Monday's final practice session before the Spurs meet the Indiana Pacers at the AT&T Center on Wednesday night.

The meaning of the Spurs Way, of course, is contained in the quote about perseverance from 19th-century social reformer Jacob Riis that is translated into the native language of each player on the Spurs — this season, that would be English (Jefferson, Tim Duncan, Antonio McDyess, DeJuan Blair, George Hill, Matt Bonner, Gary Neal, Garrett Temple, Alonzo Gee, Bobby Simmons, James Anderson), Spanish (Manu Ginobili), Portuguese (Tiago Splitter) and French (Tony Parker) — and placed prominently in the team's locker room area: "When nothing seems to help I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that went before.""