read buck harey columns. they're golden

[dwayne shintzius]

i know you cant post them here, but damn, his one article archive a week before we hired popovich in 1994 is a great read, brought back a ton of memories for us drob generation fans.

[Creation88]

Buck Harvey is trash. he always has to get his jabs in at the Spurs. he's "that guy". most likely bitter because of the Spurs' limited access.

[will_spurs]

You are still allowed to post links: http://blog.mysanantonio.com/buckharvey/2013/05/from-the-archives-popovich-before-the-spurs-hired-him/

[GSH]

Well that was an utterly dipshit article. My favorite part was when he slammed Pop for going overseas to scout European talent. What a stupid thing for Pop to do. Next time the Spurs are looking for a coach, I think they should look among the ranks of sports writers. They know everything.

[T Park]

Buck Harvey is trash. he always has to get his jabs in at the Spurs. he's "that guy". most likely bitter because of the Spurs' limited access.

Huh?

[Spurs and Mavs fan]

Hmmm, should we hire a coach who will lead the Spurs to 4 championships? :depressed :rolleyes

[LarryDavid]

My favorite part was when he slammed Pop for going overseas to scout European talent. What a stupid thing for Pop to do.

Except that he didn't criticize Pop for going overseas. He criticized him for only being able to bring back Zarko Paspalj, who only appeared in 26 games for them.

[FromWayDowntown]

I still have vivid recollections of that summer of 1994 and remember some of the various schools of thought regarding the way the Spurs should proceed. Most particularly, I remember how vigorously Jay Howard (to go to a blast from the past) argued that hiring Pop to be both coach and GM was absolutely the right move for the Spurs, only to hear the same things from callers that Buck Harvey was saying in the paper (back then, Howard had a daily sports talk show on WOAI in the early evenings) -- Pop has no experience, Pop is a no-name, Pop can't handle that much responsibility. I also remember vividly how quickly Pop moved, after being hired as GM (VP of Basketball Operations, technically) to ingratiate himself to Spurs fans after being hired in late May/early June of 1994 by making sensible basketball moves that immediately improved a good team and gave it a chance to go further than it had by trading two picks to reacquire Sean Elliott, signing Avery Johnson, and signing Chuck Person.

For all of the doubts about hiring Pop that existed in 1994, it was all pretty much gone by the spring of 1995. He had a solid core to build around, no doubt, but his moves that first summer were pretty savvy and resulted in a trip to the WCF. Lots of people focus on the 8 WCF trips since 1999, but the Spurs have been to the conference finals 9 times since Popovich assumed primary control of basketball decision-making.

He obviously has been helped by having David Robinson and Tim Duncan as cornerstones and even Pop is the first to admit that his successes are attributable to his remarkable players. But he and the people he's hired (and the people they've hired) have done an insanely good job of identifying and developing talent, particularly given their financial and market constraints. Spurs fans always seem to want more and many focus more on the failures than the successes, but I think when the ledger is finally read on Pop's career in San Antonio from 1995 until whenever he retires, even the most anti-Pop observers will admit that the track record would be almost impossible for others even approximate.

[slick'81]

POP is the shit best coach in the NBA

[purist]

buck Harvey is cool. that he's honest enough to reprint a column in which his skepticism of the spurs thinking in considering Pop speaks volumes. don't know why anyone would hate on that.

[ShoogarBear]

That was actually a great column by Buck. Everything he said was spot on in terms of what the Spurs next GM would have to be and do. He wasn't questioning anything about Pop except for his lack of experience and track record. (Sam Presti at 31 was more of a known quantity than Pop was at 45.)

LOL at all the Monday Morning quarterbacks here who knew in 1994 that Pop was going to last 20 years and win four titles.

[JWest596]

From '94 to 99, Fire Pop! was not a joke.

[GSH]

That was actually a great column by Buck. Everything he said was spot on in terms of what the Spurs next GM would have to be and do. He wasn't questioning anything about Pop except for his lack of experience and track record. (Sam Presti at 31 was more of a known quantity than Pop was at 45.)

LOL at all the Monday Morning quarterbacks here who knew in 1994 that Pop was going to last 20 years and win four titles.


Not everything. This part was pure cheap shot:

It is: Popovich has the inside track for this job not because of what he has done, but because of who he knows. Should the Spurs make their most important hire since Larry Brown for this reason?

Popovich won’t want to hear that, but it’s the truth. In the late ’60s he was a cadet at the Air Force Academy when a general named Robert F. McDermott served as dean. They weren’t close, but they knew each other. Popovich’s wife, Erin, was a friend of McDermott’s daughter, Betsy.

Without this tie, Popovich wouldn’t be the leading candidate.


Bringing in the stuff about McD's daughter, in particular, was low and uncalled for. There's no way... NO Fucking WAY... the friendship between Erin and McDermott's daughter added any weight to the hire.

And saying that the thing Pop had been best known for was bringing in Paspartou? I don't think Harvey wants his own career summed up on the basis of one or two screw-ups. That article was a hack job. I remember when it came out, and I thought those things were out of line even then.

And while he doesn't say it directly, a lot of people (then) believed that European players would never measure up. He was wrong.

[purist]

From '94 to 99, Fire Pop! was not a joke.

On this board it's more like 1994-2013. There are so many "experts" here it's like a hall of fame reunion. Lol

[exstatic]

I was pissed off when he fired Bob Hill and was for years after after that. Even today I don't like him much but he has done a dam good job over the years as coach and his years as GM.

He didn't fire Pop. In essence, the players did. They were tired of him taking credit for wins, and throwing the players under the bus for losses. A group of them went to Pop and begged him to fire Hill. Ol' Bob had "lost the team", and had to go.

[FromWayDowntown]

The archival column about Tim Duncan (from before Timmy's first practice):

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/buckharvey/2013/05/from-the-archives-duncan-before-his-first-practice/