ElNono
09-21-2015, 01:47 AM
Concerning Coaches: Gregg Popovich has your pinot right here
As the opening night creeps ever closer, we’re going to be taking some time to reflect on the 30 head coaches tasked with leading their teams through the labyrinth of an NBA regular season. You can follow the rest of the series here (http://hardwoodparoxysm.com/category/concerning-coaches/).
I have decided to pair the writing of this article with a hefty mug of a 2014 Malbec. This particular vintage is sold in a brown cardboard box. I’ll leave the brand unspecified so as not to jeopardize any future boxed-wine endorsement deals. I’ve chosen wine as the liquid accoutrement for these words because it’s an interest that Gregg Popovich and I both share and I was hoping it would put me into a Popovichian state of mind. The problem is that, when it comes to wine, I’m firmly in the quantity camp. Pops is a quality guy. Or at least I assume he is given the fact the his collection includes over 3,000 bottles which he keeps in a 12-foot by 20-foot aboveground wine cellar he built in his back yard (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:F15WgIRvUTMJ:www.spursdynasty.com/2006/05/coach-popovich-in-wine-spectator.html+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari), “using Sisterdale cream stone by San Antonio-based Casa Linda Remodeling.” My wine, almost always imbibed from a coffee mug, almost always comes from an endless stream of brown cardboard boxes in my pantry.
*****
I’m of the opinion that Popovich is the best coach in the NBA. The league hands out an award for that each season, Pops has won three times. The only real argument for him not winning coach of the year, every year, is that his biggest professional accomplishment is building a self-sustaining culture. That single edifice — the Spurs Way — is more impressive than any quantity of regular season or playoff wins. But I get the argument that in each individual season someone else may have succeeded comparatively in a much more difficult situation. Popovich’s coaching career simply can’t be evaluated on a season-by-season basis, it flows like a river. The past has informed and shaped every moment of the present.
This is why it’s so hard to measure Popovich against his peers — his success is not just on a different scale, he’s working with a different unit of measurement. Everyone else’s career is a collection of single seasons. His is an era.
*****
I am intensely jealous of Popovich’s work-life balance. The rest of the NBA coaching ranks often appear to be filled with haggard, weary men who are prisoners of their own obsessions. Pops is their equal in passion. But no one lives up to him in perspective, detachment and humor. Apparently he drinks wine while he breaks down game tape, which leaves two questions: 1) How much would you pay to drink a bottle of wine with Pops while he talked you through some sets? 2) What kind of wine did he drink when watching Game 6 of the 2013 Finals? I’m guessing something in a jug (even the intentionally detached can feel sad).
*****
We’ve already covered longevity and success, but those are nothing without adaptation. For nearly a decade, his Spurs’ teams were brutishly physical and gratingly abrasive. They slowed the game to a crawl, pounded the ball in the post, and made you earn every bruise. Then, all of a sudden, they were running teams out of the gym, spinning heads with speed, movement, passing and shooting. In the middle of his career, Pops remade his system and put himself right back on top. The changeup was made possible by the culture he’d already established.
This season a new challenge awaits. LaMarcus Aldridge and David West are here. They are both offensive endpoints of the kind the new offensive-minded Spurs have never really had. Accomodating their talent will be a welcome challenge, but a challenge nonetheless. Another adaptation is called for, although perhaps more subtle than the last go-around.
But the hard work is already done.
Aldridge and West are being folded into a community of role-players (even the stars see themselves as equals, with roles to play). This is Pops legacy, a basketball team of malleable form and impeccable function. It is a community of sacrifice and selflessness and, “what else can I do to help?” Every player understands the machine and happily serves at the pleasure of the its wry operator, the Sommelier-in-Chief.
*****
My mug is empty.
http://hardwoodparoxysm.com/2015/09/17/concerning-coaches-gregg-popovich-has-your-pinot-right-here/
As the opening night creeps ever closer, we’re going to be taking some time to reflect on the 30 head coaches tasked with leading their teams through the labyrinth of an NBA regular season. You can follow the rest of the series here (http://hardwoodparoxysm.com/category/concerning-coaches/).
I have decided to pair the writing of this article with a hefty mug of a 2014 Malbec. This particular vintage is sold in a brown cardboard box. I’ll leave the brand unspecified so as not to jeopardize any future boxed-wine endorsement deals. I’ve chosen wine as the liquid accoutrement for these words because it’s an interest that Gregg Popovich and I both share and I was hoping it would put me into a Popovichian state of mind. The problem is that, when it comes to wine, I’m firmly in the quantity camp. Pops is a quality guy. Or at least I assume he is given the fact the his collection includes over 3,000 bottles which he keeps in a 12-foot by 20-foot aboveground wine cellar he built in his back yard (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:F15WgIRvUTMJ:www.spursdynasty.com/2006/05/coach-popovich-in-wine-spectator.html+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari), “using Sisterdale cream stone by San Antonio-based Casa Linda Remodeling.” My wine, almost always imbibed from a coffee mug, almost always comes from an endless stream of brown cardboard boxes in my pantry.
*****
I’m of the opinion that Popovich is the best coach in the NBA. The league hands out an award for that each season, Pops has won three times. The only real argument for him not winning coach of the year, every year, is that his biggest professional accomplishment is building a self-sustaining culture. That single edifice — the Spurs Way — is more impressive than any quantity of regular season or playoff wins. But I get the argument that in each individual season someone else may have succeeded comparatively in a much more difficult situation. Popovich’s coaching career simply can’t be evaluated on a season-by-season basis, it flows like a river. The past has informed and shaped every moment of the present.
This is why it’s so hard to measure Popovich against his peers — his success is not just on a different scale, he’s working with a different unit of measurement. Everyone else’s career is a collection of single seasons. His is an era.
*****
I am intensely jealous of Popovich’s work-life balance. The rest of the NBA coaching ranks often appear to be filled with haggard, weary men who are prisoners of their own obsessions. Pops is their equal in passion. But no one lives up to him in perspective, detachment and humor. Apparently he drinks wine while he breaks down game tape, which leaves two questions: 1) How much would you pay to drink a bottle of wine with Pops while he talked you through some sets? 2) What kind of wine did he drink when watching Game 6 of the 2013 Finals? I’m guessing something in a jug (even the intentionally detached can feel sad).
*****
We’ve already covered longevity and success, but those are nothing without adaptation. For nearly a decade, his Spurs’ teams were brutishly physical and gratingly abrasive. They slowed the game to a crawl, pounded the ball in the post, and made you earn every bruise. Then, all of a sudden, they were running teams out of the gym, spinning heads with speed, movement, passing and shooting. In the middle of his career, Pops remade his system and put himself right back on top. The changeup was made possible by the culture he’d already established.
This season a new challenge awaits. LaMarcus Aldridge and David West are here. They are both offensive endpoints of the kind the new offensive-minded Spurs have never really had. Accomodating their talent will be a welcome challenge, but a challenge nonetheless. Another adaptation is called for, although perhaps more subtle than the last go-around.
But the hard work is already done.
Aldridge and West are being folded into a community of role-players (even the stars see themselves as equals, with roles to play). This is Pops legacy, a basketball team of malleable form and impeccable function. It is a community of sacrifice and selflessness and, “what else can I do to help?” Every player understands the machine and happily serves at the pleasure of the its wry operator, the Sommelier-in-Chief.
*****
My mug is empty.
http://hardwoodparoxysm.com/2015/09/17/concerning-coaches-gregg-popovich-has-your-pinot-right-here/