Pop is doing a disservice to the growth of Wemby

[z0sa]

I heard in an interview with the esteemed scholar Draymond Green where he said that since Victor can do a little bit of everything and he's all over the court that might actually be hard for his teammates to adjust and know their role and where their spots should be. I don't think that's exactly the problem with this team, it goes beyond that, but still an interesting point.

That's EXACTLY where coaching comes in, tbh. And if the pieces don't fit 50+ games in, you make trades. As in, sooner than later, not years down the line. This SHOULD be a very eventful off-season - if PATFO care at all about winning in the next few years.

[buttsR4rebounding]

Pop's lack of coaching a en was always covered by his ability to delegate to more talented assistant coaches and the fact that he had 3 incredibly team-oriented, extremely high BBIQ, hall of fame talents on the team. Those more talented assistants were willing to come here to compete for a championship every year, but not for a rebuild. In addition, Pop used to be all about team success, but now is just as concerned about building and maintaining his own brand. I fear it will take another 2 years of Pop-led teams before there is enough momentum against him that he resigns due to health concerns.

[exstatic]

Pop's lack of coaching a en was always covered by his ability to delegate to more talented assistant coaches and the fact that he had 3 incredibly team-oriented, extremely high BBIQ, hall of fame talents on the team. Those more talented assistants were willing to come here to compete for a championship every year, but not for a rebuild. In addition, Pop used to be all about team success, but now is just as concerned about building and maintaining his own brand. I fear it will take another 2 years of Pop-led teams before there is enough momentum against him that he resigns due to health concerns.

Assistants don’t “come here”, they’re almost all home grown,in an NBA sense. PJ Carlissimo and that Boylan idiot are the only two I can think of who came from elsewhere in the NBA. The rest start life as a spurs intern or video coordinator, or come from abroad like Ettore or Bret Brown.

[dbestpro]

I wish they would take a flyer on Hayes. It’s almost like they are afraid he will be good and cost more to sign or disrupt their draft plans.

[CorrectCrusader]

I wish they would take a flyer on Hayes. It’s almost like they are afraid he will be good and cost more to sign or disrupt their draft plans.

another low IQ trash shooter? I'm surprised the spurs haven't picked him up already

[JeffDuncan]

Pop's lack of coaching a en was always covered by his ability to delegate to more talented assistant coaches and the fact that he had 3 incredibly team-oriented, extremely high BBIQ, hall of fame talents on the team. …

All NBA head coaches are team managers. Baseball gets the terminology right. Pop spends very little time instructing the players on how to play basketball. He doesn’t have the time. How much of the daily customer service, check cashing, bookkeeping, etc does a bank manager do? An office supervisor doesn’t do all the office work himself. He can’t.

Pop puts on a show of instructional coaching on the sideline during a game. He calls players over to talk to them. He flashes hand signals. But if you’re paying attention you’ll have noticed something about all that. It hardly ever makes the slightest difference to the outcome of the game. It’s primarily a show.

As to what Pop is concerned about, it can be hard to tell if he’s concerned about anything at all. Maybe what wine to serve at dinner after the game.

[Chinook]

I heard in an interview with the esteemed scholar Draymond Green where he said that since Victor can do a little bit of everything and he's all over the court that might actually be hard for his teammates to adjust and know their role and where their spots should be. I don't think that's exactly the problem with this team, it goes beyond that, but still an interesting point.

Draymond is actually very smart and observant. People overlook that because he's crazy. If he could be trusted to not attack his own teammates, I'd be pretty open to the Spurs trying to acquire him this off-season.

The biggest "problem" as it relates to Wemby is that he's too young. Despite the premise of this thread, his individual development is going really well. He's beyond where even someone of his talent should be. What does a disservice to him is how people keep pretending he's mature and ready to skip a bunch of steps. He's not. The dude is still getting bullied on the court and is still too inexperienced to handle individual matchups against stars. I think a huge part of Wemby's frustration last night came from Gobert shoving Victor around all game with no calls. Multiple times Rudy just shoved him out of the way and dunked on him. Wemby has pride. No matter how many times folks want to use that to push a narrative, it's not concerning that Wemby isn't happy with losing. The splitting point is not whether he's frustrated or not; it's whether he's going to channel that frustration into improving the things he can control or whether he's going to lash out and let it sour his experience.

We don't actually know which way he'll go on this. People who only watch his highlights may not understand it, but Wemby's actual technique on the court is not very good, on either end. One of the reasons why he's so inconsistent scoring is because he doesn't have go-to moves. He turns the ball over way too much because of his dribble combined with him still having a slow time processing the NBA floor. He swings down and reaches too much on defense. He still doesn't know how to use his body to handle contact. He's gotten much better at handling his responsibilities on the court, but there's room to go there too. This is all perfectly normal for a rookie. But does he understand that? Does he understand that if he can improve on those issues that he'll win no matter where he goes? Or is he caught up in the hype telling him he's already there and it's everyone else's fault that he's not already contending? I'm not sure. There's evidence for both sides.

In either event, I doubt Victor would've freaked out had he been told "Hey, we're going to be bad the first year and then look to make major changes starting the second year once we know what's up." The issue is that seeing that map in the abstract and living on through that timeline in real time are different things. If Victor is legit frustrated with his situation, it's probably because time isn't moving faster, not because he doesn't believe in the concept of the team getting a good draft pick to "get him help". That draft pick will be a good thing whether they use it to get him a guy like Risacher or if they trade it for someone like Trae Young. Basically no matter what, it's in his best interests to put his head down and work on his game rather than worrying about the talent on the roster or the coaching staff for the rest of the season.

[SpurSpike]

I heard in an interview with the esteemed scholar Draymond Green where he said that since Victor can do a little bit of everything and he's all over the court that might actually be hard for his teammates to adjust and know their role and where their spots should be. I don't think that's exactly the problem with this team, it goes beyond that, but still an interesting point.

I hate Draymond but he might have a point with this. There was a game earlier in the season that a few of Victors past coaches came to see him play and they were asked if they were surprised to see the Spurs struggling after adding a generational talent like Wemby. All of them said they were not surprised at all to see the Spurs struggling and that the same thing happened to each of their teams when Victor was added to the mix. They said he is such a unique player that it took some time for his teammates to adjust to what he can do on the court.

[MannyIsGod]

My only wish on earth is that everyone in this thread (except me) just goes ahead and shoots themselves in the face.

There are a lot of garbage people who post garbage things on this site but JFC man you need help. I really hope this is all an act because if you're really this miserable then condolences.

[MannyIsGod]

Draymond is actually very smart and observant. People overlook that because he's crazy. If he could be trusted to not attack his own teammates, I'd be pretty open to the Spurs trying to acquire him this off-season.

The biggest "problem" as it relates to Wemby is that he's too young. Despite the premise of this thread, his individual development is going really well. He's beyond where even someone of his talent should be. What does a disservice to him is how people keep pretending he's mature and ready to skip a bunch of steps. He's not. The dude is still getting bullied on the court and is still too inexperienced to handle individual matchups against stars. I think a huge part of Wemby's frustration last night came from Gobert shoving Victor around all game with no calls. Multiple times Rudy just shoved him out of the way and dunked on him. Wemby has pride. No matter how many times folks want to use that to push a narrative, it's not concerning that Wemby isn't happy with losing. The splitting point is not whether he's frustrated or not; it's whether he's going to channel that frustration into improving the things he can control or whether he's going to lash out and let it sour his experience.

We don't actually know which way he'll go on this. People who only watch his highlights may not understand it, but Wemby's actual technique on the court is not very good, on either end. One of the reasons why he's so inconsistent scoring is because he doesn't have go-to moves. He turns the ball over way too much because of his dribble combined with him still having a slow time processing the NBA floor. He swings down and reaches too much on defense. He still doesn't know how to use his body to handle contact. He's gotten much better at handling his responsibilities on the court, but there's room to go there too. This is all perfectly normal for a rookie. But does he understand that? Does he understand that if he can improve on those issues that he'll win no matter where he goes? Or is he caught up in the hype telling him he's already there and it's everyone else's fault that he's not already contending? I'm not sure. There's evidence for both sides.

In either event, I doubt Victor would've freaked out had he been told "Hey, we're going to be bad the first year and then look to make major changes starting the second year once we know what's up." The issue is that seeing that map in the abstract and living on through that timeline in real time are different things. If Victor is legit frustrated with his situation, it's probably because time isn't moving faster, not because he doesn't believe in the concept of the team getting a good draft pick to "get him help". That draft pick will be a good thing whether they use it to get him a guy like Risacher or if they trade it for someone like Trae Young. Basically no matter what, it's in his best interests to put his head down and work on his game rather than worrying about the talent on the roster or the coaching staff for the rest of the season.

The frustration on display last night goes way deeper than what Gobert did and any no calls. Its been building a lot over the past month and you could see it in his interviews at AS weekend, his interview after the 5x5 and then fully on display last night. Pop benched him in the 3rd after a couple of turn overs and I honestly didn't understand why. Wemby lost his balance on the two turnovers and they weren't the results of poor decisions so I didn't understand why Pop choose that moment to actually be a hardass when he's done almost none of that this year.

I also think you continuously mischaracterize what people expect out of Wemby right now. Most people here don't expect Wemby to be carrying this team to victories and don't think he's ready to be the best player in the NBA although the potential is obviously on display. Yeah, he's not ready to be the centerpiece and have things run through him on a WINNING team. That's incredibly obvious and I doubt many of the rational posters on here would dispute that. But we're not expected to be a winning team, we're literally the opposite of that. Its OK to make Wemby the center of what we do with the understanding that it is going to look ugly at times. Its not about skipping steps its about a difference in opinion what the steps are. We can disagree on whetehr not on which approach is better, but you really should stop trying to characterize it the way you have almost all season.

100% agree he has no go to moves. But that's part of coaching! I don't understand why we don't have plays run to get him in the same positions we got LMA for mid range jumpers. Pop all year has had this at ude that we should let him just figure things out with almost no structure and its clear that at time this leads to situations that he finds incredibly frustrating on the court. What progress Wemby has made this year - and he's made a lot - is primarily because he's figured things out. I firmly understand the value in not showing people things but letting them struggle a bit and figure things out because it tends to stick better, but when I was teaching college students I didn't just toss them a book and say figure it out.

I think Victor is frustrated by the lack of winning and I think that's pretty much the end of it. I don't particularly think its a long term problem unless we don't win for years. But everything this kid says directly points to him absolutely loathing losing. This is a good quality to have in a star. I don't disagaree at all with your points on what Wemby should worry about, but IMO its clear Pop isn't helping the kid much at all.

[Big Empty]

I already knew this was a throw away year. The Spurs will plug some holes with our two lottery picks and bring in a veteran servicable center. I expect this team to make the play in next year and be a playoff team in two years

[MultiTroll]

Draymond is actually very smart and observant.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Draymond is actually very smart and observant. People overlook that because he's crazy. If he could be trusted to not attack his own teammates, I'd be pretty open to the Spurs trying to acquire him this off-season.

The biggest "problem" as it relates to Wemby is that he's too young. Despite the premise of this thread, his individual development is going really well. He's beyond where even someone of his talent should be. What does a disservice to him is how people keep pretending he's mature and ready to skip a bunch of steps. He's not. The dude is still getting bullied on the court and is still too inexperienced to handle individual matchups against stars. I think a huge part of Wemby's frustration last night came from Gobert shoving Victor around all game with no calls. Multiple times Rudy just shoved him out of the way and dunked on him. Wemby has pride. No matter how many times folks want to use that to push a narrative, it's not concerning that Wemby isn't happy with losing. The splitting point is not whether he's frustrated or not; it's whether he's going to channel that frustration into improving the things he can control or whether he's going to lash out and let it sour his experience.

We don't actually know which way he'll go on this. People who only watch his highlights may not understand it, but Wemby's actual technique on the court is not very good, on either end. One of the reasons why he's so inconsistent scoring is because he doesn't have go-to moves. He turns the ball over way too much because of his dribble combined with him still having a slow time processing the NBA floor. He swings down and reaches too much on defense. He still doesn't know how to use his body to handle contact. He's gotten much better at handling his responsibilities on the court, but there's room to go there too. This is all perfectly normal for a rookie. But does he understand that? Does he understand that if he can improve on those issues that he'll win no matter where he goes? Or is he caught up in the hype telling him he's already there and it's everyone else's fault that he's not already contending? I'm not sure. There's evidence for both sides.

In either event, I doubt Victor would've freaked out had he been told "Hey, we're going to be bad the first year and then look to make major changes starting the second year once we know what's up." The issue is that seeing that map in the abstract and living on through that timeline in real time are different things. If Victor is legit frustrated with his situation, it's probably because time isn't moving faster, not because he doesn't believe in the concept of the team getting a good draft pick to "get him help". That draft pick will be a good thing whether they use it to get him a guy like Risacher or if they trade it for someone like Trae Young. Basically no matter what, it's in his best interests to put his head down and work on his game rather than worrying about the talent on the roster or the coaching staff for the rest of the season.

It's one thing to have empathy. It's another to understand that same feeling does not mean same cause. Most people figure that last bit out in HS.

[thiste]

[dbestpro]

another low IQ trash shooter? I'm surprised the spurs haven't picked him up already

At least he knows how to pass the ball and play defense. Shooting is only 33% of the game.

[scott]

A lot of us have opinions on Pop, but man... this guy really hates him

I just don't understand what the Spurs coaching staff thinks is going to happen down the road - all of these guys are just going to forgot all the bad habits they learned and become good defenders? Even if Wemby and Vassell are the only players left on the team, they've still been taught whatever the this defensive scheme is and that will need to be broken. Wemby having the defensive impact he does while still making a ton of mistakes and being surrounded by even more mistakes is impressive, but also frustrating.

[Leetonidas]

My only wish on earth is that everyone in this thread (except me) just goes ahead and shoots themselves in the face.

Seek help

[Splits]

this guy should tell us how he really feels

[z0sa]

A lot of us have opinions on Pop, but man... this guy really hates him

I just don't understand what the Spurs coaching staff thinks is going to happen down the road - all of these guys are just going to forgot all the bad habits they learned and become good defenders? Even if Wemby and Vassell are the only players left on the team, they've still been taught whatever the this defensive scheme is and that will need to be broken. Wemby having the defensive impact he does while still making a ton of mistakes and being surrounded by even more mistakes is impressive, but also frustrating.

If we play devil's advocate, and believe for a moment that Popovich and co actually are emphasizing all these points and has been all season, then we can only come to the conclusion that, other than Wemby, our team is full of low (basketball) IQ s.

However, that wouldn't explain egregious, obvious errors like starting Sochan at point guard for dozens of games.

[scott]

If we play devil's advocate, and believe for a moment that Popovich and co actually are emphasizing all these points and has been all season, then we can only come to the conclusion that, other than Wemby, our team is full of low (basketball) IQ s.

However, that wouldn't explain egregious, obvious errors like starting Sochan at point guard for dozens of games.

Yeah, on the two extremes we have 1) Popovich and the staff don't bother to teach defensive schemes and principles AT ALL and 2) our players are wholly incapable of learning said schemes. Like most things, the answer is likely somewhere in the middle... but both answers do suggest that a massive roster overhaul is necessary to ever be good at defense again. Maybe Pop and crew have resigned to the fact that these guys suck and aren't going to be around anyway... but, I kind of doubt that.

[John B]

Wemby is leading all rookies in almost all categories, arguably top 2 defensive players if not best, maybe top 10 best player right now. Where exactly is the disservice??

Spurs are poised to get 2 lottery picks, potential top 5 and top 10, has caps and movable assets to sign/trade maybe a Trae Young or whoever come the off season. And I don’t doubt many more would love to pair with Wemby. You rather win meaningless W’s now, and lose the chance of drafting two lottery picks so we can watch meaningless wins now?? Are we there yet, are we there yet??

[widowmaker]

Wemby is leading all rookies in almost all categories, arguably top 2 defensive players if not best, maybe top 10 best player right now. Where exactly is the disservice??

Spurs are poised to get 2 lottery picks, potential top 5 and top 10, has caps and movable assets to sign/trade maybe a Trae Young or whoever come the off season. And I don’t doubt many more would love to pair with Wemby. You rather win meaningless W’s now, and lose the chance of drafting two lottery picks so we can watch meaningless wins now?? Are we there yet, are we there yet??

You forgot to mention that the spurs are also good at losing and elite at not even putting together a unit cohesive basketball team

[John B]

You forgot to mention that the spurs are also good at losing and elite at not even putting together a unit cohesive basketball team

Spurs are tanking It’s so easy to sign a George Hill, CoJo or anybody and win more games. But why?? So they could get pounded in the 1st round, IF they even make there, while losing the chance of drafting two lottery picks.

[exstatic]

Spurs are tanking It’s so easy to sign a George Hill, CoJo or anybody and win more games. But why?? So they could get pounded in the 1st round, IF they even make there, while losing the chance of drafting two lottery picks.

Houston did that, and they’re still nearly as bad as last year.

[timtonymanu]

Chinook posting those essays just to blame something on Vic. Does it all the time.