Is Pop's incompetency or the players just sucks?

[spursparker9]

Honestly it seems starting to look like the roster is g-league level. The greatest chef also wouldn't be able to make a good dish if all the ingredients are rotten.

[NASpurs]

Where's the "both" option?

[z0sa]

Where's the "both" option?

[spursparker9]

Where's the "both" option?

:lol

Only can pick 1

[SouthernFryd]

I'm guessing not a Native English speaker?

[offset formation]

100% the roster is poorly constructed.

I'm telling you guys, if you watch the players in isolation, and just watch them on both ends, it becomes very clear who gives effort in both ends. Who has BBIQ.

For example, Keldon's D, especially his weak side help D, is an abomination. There are times he doesn't move when he has to be the guy to force a pass so the team doesn't have a layup/dunk.

I've been doing that this season a bunch. Really eyeballing one player up and down the court.

What I took away from doing so is that the only players that deserve to be on an NBA floor are/were: Wemby, Bassey, Cedi, Mamu, Jones (but is so disadvantaged by his height defensively). Sochan, Vassell, Collins, and McBuckets both show something in flashes but are far from consistent.

Aside from them, we have absolute turnstiles.

That said, Pop is far from blameless. The shit that Pop has let Keldon get away with defensively is utterly embarrassing. And by allowing it, he permits the results we get....which are the absolute worst defensivevteam in NBA history last year followed by the 2nd or 3rd worst team this year. And the only reason there's been improvement is because of Wembanyama's impact on the team stats when he's in.

There will never be a winning team comprised by the current roster and coaching style.

[Barfunk]

Honestly it seems starting to look like the roster is g-league level. The greatest chef also wouldn't be able to make a good dish if all the ingredients are rotten.

Put Gordon Ramsey or any other really great chef in a Taco Bell. Then challenge them to use and cook with said restaurant's ingredients and whatever else that's used there, and it'll be the best damn Taco Bell you have ever had, bar none. But at the same time, I get what you're saying.

[MultiTroll]

Honestly it seems starting to look like the roster is g-league level. The greatest chef also wouldn't be able to make a good dish if all the ingredients are rotten.
https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/rexfeatures_1622528a.jpg?resize=250

[TekXX]

yes

[Uriel]

The year the Spurs last won the championship, in 2014, Pop had coached the team extra hard since the very first day of training camp, going so far as to bring the team to the Air Force Academy to do military-style training.

This year, he just seems a lot more mellow.

[Barfunk]

It's obviously a mix of both, but of course Pop is also doing a bad job. Unless he's absolutely purposely throwing the games and it's simply flying over our heads (CIA Pop).

[offset formation]

The year the Spurs last won the championship, in 2014, Pop had coached the team extra hard since the very first day of training camp, going so far as to bring the team to the Air Force Academy to do military-style training.

This year, he just seems a lot more mellow.

Correct but it ain't just this year. He's had his nuts clipped since neph broke his heart. The last year I remember him showing fire with poor play or missed assignments with any regularity was 2019

[poopbox]

Correct but it ain't just this year. He's had his nuts clipped since neph broke his heart. The last year I remember him showing fire with poor play or missed assignments with any regularity was 2019

I actually think it was Lapussy Softdridge asking for a trade coming off a 60 win season and a trip to the WCF that neutured Pop. First time in his life he had to deal with a selfish player he couldn't just ship off. He didn't know how to handle it and it just completely broke him tbh.

[offset formation]

I actually think it was Lapussy Softdridge asking for a trade coming off a 60 win season and a trip to the WCF that neutured Pop. First time in his life he had to deal with a selfish player he couldn't just ship off. He didn't know how to handle it and it just completely broke him tbh.

No. Twas neph. He literally chased that mothrrfucker down to both coasts, first getting cucked in New York completely while that miserable POS hid in closets to avoid seeing Spurs reps, then giving him a 30 min lunch in San Diego where pop's pleadings fell on deaf ears.

I know some of you have a deep hatred for LMA but I can't imagine comparing the institutional trauma between those two. And unlike nephs immature nonsense was, LMA and pop met and worked it out like men, then nearly won 70 games the next season. It was, and will always be neph.

[poopbox]

No. Twas neph. He literally chased that mothrrfucker down to both coasts, first getting cucked in New York completely while that miserable POS hid in closets to avoid seeing Spurs reps, then giving him a 30 min lunch in San Diego where pop's pleadings fell on deaf ears.

I know some of you have a deep hatred for LMA but I can't imagine comparing the institutional trauma between those two. And unlike nephs immature nonsense was, LMA and pop met and worked it out like men, then nearly won 70 games the next season. It was, and will always be neph.

They didn't "meet and work it out". Pop said if he could get what he wanted for LMA he would trade him. There were stories they were trying to trade him during the draft that year. Nobody wanted him cause he was a moody low iq malcontent who only cared about getting his numbers.

Even the way LMA left the team was shitty. Said he "couldn't get his rhythm" coming of the bench...after coming off the bench once or twice...then just left the team. Spurs tried to dress it up as they were going to start playing younger players and they were moving in another direction. Then as soon as LMA went to the nets he started coming off the bench and i never heard any talk about him "Getting his rhythm" .

[Tyronn Lue]

Honestly it seems starting to look like the roster is g-league level. The greatest chef also wouldn't be able to make a good dish if all the ingredients are rotten.
In this case the chef hand picked the ingredients. It's not like the NBA sent them a bus load of players and said "this is your team".

[tim_duncan_fan]

It's both, isn't it?

[offset formation]

They didn't "meet and work it out". Pop said if he could get what he wanted for LMA he would trade him. There were stories they were trying to trade him during the draft that year. Nobody wanted him cause he was a moody low iq malcontent who only cared about getting his numbers.

Even the way LMA left the team was shitty. Said he "couldn't get his rhythm" coming of the bench...after coming off the bench once or twice...then just left the team. Spurs tried to dress it up as they were going to start playing younger players and they were moving in another direction. Then as soon as LMA went to the nets he started coming off the bench and i never heard any talk about him "Getting his rhythm" .

Of course tgey worked it out. LMA wasn't content with how he was bring used. Pop conceded he was right. Pop uses him differently and tgey win what 67 games. How is that LMA being a bad teammate?

[RobinsontoDuncan]

Do you all realize this is the youngest team in the NBA? Has anyone considered the fact that in order to tank for Wemby the spurs had to get rid of all their best players, and Wemby isn’t good enough yet to make up for that?

[Allan Rowe vs Wade]

75% players 25% pop

but pop isn't playing to win (lol people who take pop's words at face value). he's playing to develop the potential core and evaluate the rest (lol people who don't take pop's words at face value)

[duncan2150]

Both.

First it’s the staff and pop who killed the team With that sochan’s pg experience and by not choosing who will be on the bench between sochan and keldon.

then the players are showing no heart and are playing pretty bad.

[SpursBills]

Almost 30 games in the season the spurs are dead last in opponent 3 pointers made and opponent 3 point %. Last season they were also dead last in opponent 3 point %. Seriously, teams on average are shooting 39.2% against the Spurs, basically turning every team into an elite 3 point shooter on high volume against them. This also fits the eye test too as it seems like every other game a 3 point shooter has a career night against the spurs. This is partially on the players but a ton of this is on scheme - guys should not be collapsing and rotating off good 3 point shooters especially when you now have Wemby in the paint.

[slick'81]

This is an absolutely horrific constructed roster. And pop is old as fuxk,definitely not a good combination

[offset formation]

Almost 30 games in the season the spurs are dead last in opponent 3 pointers made and opponent 3 point %. Last season they were also dead last in opponent 3 point %. Seriously, teams on average are shooting 39.2% against the Spurs, basically turning every team into an elite 3 point shooter on high volume against them. This also fits the eye test too as it seems like every other game a 3 point shooter has a career night against the spurs. This is partially on the players but a ton of this is on scheme - guys should not be collapsing and rotating off good 3 point shooters especially when you now have Wemby in the paint.

You mean like Keldon playing help defense on Giannis (slowly and in poor position mind you at that) off Dame?

But you nailed it, our 3pt defense is where we are killed night in and night out. What you didn't quite mention is that we're actually on a worse pace this year when Wemby isn't on the floor.

And the reasons are multi-faceted, ranging from poor understanding of the scheme, poor coaching, poor BBIQ, poor or no effort, poor rotations, overcoming a teammate's effort or rotation which leaves you in a bad spot, or when you help but your teammate doesn't, etc. Those last ones are the real problem as those ultimately eat away at team dynamics like trust and commitment to team goals. It's team cancer that often metastasizes into all out surrender and strife.

[Tyronn Lue]

Both.

First it’s the staff and pop who killed the team With that sochan’s pg experience and by not choosing who will be on the bench between sochan and keldon.

then the players are showing no heart and are playing pretty bad.
Just watching Luka clown them was enough to know they aren't ready for real NBA minutes.

[LeBowen]

Remind me again, who's the president of the team?
Ah, it's Pop.

The team doesn't suck. But they got 22 wins last year while actively trying to tank and noone played more than 65 games.
We were literally throwing away games by sitting our few good players based on matchups.

The entire roster was retained, we added Wemby who's obviously a class above everyone else on the team, even as a rookie and somehow that young core looks exponentially worse this season?
Just how?

[scott]

It’s both, and unfortunately we probably won’t move on from Pop and it’s probably not possible to completely overhaul the roster fast enough. Even if the GM went into turbo-mode on trying to remake the roster, it will be Wemby’s third or 4th season before he’s able to make discernible progress. By then, Wemby’s team will have already been thinking about being the first superstar to play under a QO and just go unto UFA after 5 years. Complete fucking disaster.

It’s wild how this ownership group apparently has no ability to recognize this. They should be directing the FO to begin the complete roster overhaul as soon as possible, so that this team looks significantly different in the second half of the season, and completely different to start next season.

They keep talking about wanting to see what they have… I don’t know what else is needed to be seen: they have nothing but Wemby and a steaming pile of shit.

[jjspur]

I put most of the blame on Pop and the front office. Why ?
1. This is basically the same team from last year and it looks considerably worse - that's on pop and the front office.
2. The lineups are terrible. Sochan is not a PG. Why even try. Just use the current pg we have considering he's is getting paid a starters salary, has more experience at pg and it's his natural position. The Sochan experiment is a failure, change it and deal with it. It really can't get worse.
3. I think Pop knows how to coach vets, but young players he's completely clueless sometimes ruining their confidence by not playing them or playing them when they are completely overmatched.
4. The front office could have made a difference this summer but chose to get rid of players that could have helped a bit (other than the guy from Phoenix). Yeah I know, we got a few so so picks, but the players we got weren't going to get us to the playoffs. There is no Wemby in this year's draft to tank hard for. Might as well improve the team.
5. We probably need better assistant coaches as well.

[weebo]

Do you all realize this is the youngest team in the NBA? Has anyone considered the fact that in order to tank for Wemby the spurs had to get rid of all their best players, and Wemby isn’t good enough yet to make up for that?

Spurfan was as recently as a couple of years ago crying about getting rid of vets and letting the young guys run and start rebuilding...now that they have that they're crying about sucking with those same young dudes

[Ed Helicopter Jones]

Give Pop his Big 3 back plus a prime Bowen and they'd still be competing for championships, even with Grandpa Pop.

The players suck. I'm getting convinced that Brian Wrong is the Franchise Destroyer.

[Russo21]

Duncan, Parker, Manu and company could have won championships with the cast of Sesame Street on the bench coaching. Had nothing to do with Pops. In fact I believe they would have won an extra one or two without him.

You're right, our players suck. But all our complete and utter suckiness landed us Wemby so it turned out ok I suppose. We shouldn't be worse this year than last but we bloody are and it sucks, it's bullshit really. It's the decisions Brian Wrong makes in the next 2 off-seasons that worry me. We'll be getting a lottery pick this year, and many other picks in the next few years. He can't fuck it up, we need to cement a decent line-up around Wemby and find some sort of direction for the team before it's time for Wemby to extend or he may leave this abomination. No more perverts who flash team psych's and get kicked off the team, no more Vassell's over Halliburton's, no more Sochan's over Sengun's and other shitty decisions.

With the coaching thing. Continuity is good. Unless Pop is coaching until he is in his 90s with full blown dementia he is not Wemby's career long coach. The team need to be looking for that coach right now so they can grow together and develop a relationship together while Wemby is still young. The sooner he gets a new coach the better so he can ride out his career with continuity that coach. If Pop sticks around for now we'll be looking for a new coach halfway through Wemby's career and I don't see the good in that, so the sooner the better for me.

[TD 21]

Should be prefaced by "bigger issue:", since they're clearly inextricably linked.

I've said it ad nauseam for years, but they're not going anywhere until they expand their world view and stop with this narrow minded definition of what a Spur "should" be (this is how they end up with the debacle that is the '21-'22 drafts).

Unfortunately, that'll never happen until the genius is long gone and that's likely a long ways off.

[eric365]

Both. Roster has no logic
And Pop play players out of position on top of that
The tanking is obvious. You coud say Pop is great at achieving the worst record possible

But most of us would have liked tanking while developping players. A 25 wins season with the team progressing would have been nice.
Tre / vessel / mcdermott / sochan / wemby. With KJ and collins off the bench is still a very bad team that would get not that many wins
And I’d like to see a defensive and offensive system that would get more and more understood by the players as the season progress

[eric365]

Both. Roster has no logic
And Pop play players out of position on top of that
The tanking is obvious. You coud say Pop is great at achieving the worst record possible

But most of us would have liked tanking while developping players. A 25 wins season with the team progressing would have been nice.
Tre / vessel / mcdermott / sochan / wemby. With KJ and collins off the bench is still a very bad team that would get not that many wins
And I’d like to see a defensive and offensive system that would get more and more understood by the players as the season progress

That lineup and a bunch of other with (Tre, vessel, wemby) have positives net rating but are played very little
https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced?CF=GROUP_NAME*E*Wemb&TeamID=1610612759&dir=D&slug=advanced&sort=NET_RATING

The Tre / vessel / mcdermott / sochan / wemby has been played 11 minutes all season! For a netrating of 28…

[Tyronn Lue]

Both. Roster has no logic
And Pop play players out of position on top of that
The tanking is obvious. You coud say Pop is great at achieving the worst record possible

But most of us would have liked tanking while developping players. A 25 wins season with the team progressing would have been nice.
Tre / vessel / mcdermott / sochan / wemby. With KJ and collins off the bench is still a very bad team that would get not that many wins
And I’d like to see a defensive and offensive system that would get more and more understood by the players as the season progress
This wouldn't matter if the plan is to purge the roster next year.

[Portnoy1000]

If it were someone else coaching not named Pop they would be fired. What’s funny is Bob Hill got fired after the spurs started 3-17 with Robinson injured. Folks seem to forget how Pop got his HC gig. We can say the players are bad, but unlike most organizations the HC has a SIGNIFICANT impact on who comes and goes. POP unfortunately understands the dynamics of his position and that he WILL NOT get fired , so he can experiment and take his sweet time developing a phenom. Folks are giving him a pass, but for me that was last year. When you achieve the goal of getting Wemby then you immediately start building a roster that can compete. Ofcourse it won’t happen year one, or maybe even two. But you cannot regress and this team has regressed simply by the fact that there issues are the same and they have the same roster with a superior talent that was lacking. I put ALL the blame on Pop, because he approves the groceries Wright buys.

[Obstructed_View]

Legendarily poor coaching from a legendarily poor coach.

[cd98]

Really it's both, but it's more players sucking.

[gambit1990]

it's more so on the players but pop is president of the spurs so depending on pop's responsibility for personnel decisions ... it could be pop's incompetency.

with that being said, spo nor mike malone would be able to coach this roster to a play-in game.

[itzsoweezee]

This team is a lottery team regardless. But it’s not historically bad/much worse than last year without pop’s incompetence

[Splits]

25-21. Lot's of Popsuckers out there

[ambchang]

75% players 25% pop

but pop isn't playing to win (lol people who take pop's words at face value). he's playing to develop the potential core and evaluate the rest (lol people who don't take pop's words at face value)

I don’t understand how pop can evaluate players without coaching them to do the things they should do. What is he evaluating them on then? Mind reading? Somehow figuring out what rotations they should do when they are 20 years old? Doesn’t make any sense.

[Mugen]

The players "suck" because of Pop's incompetency tbh. He's the worst coach in the league.

[jermaine]

It's on Pop... He should put if foot down an get rid of anyone not falling in line. Learn from Kawhi's situation.

[Maddog]

Do you all realize this is the youngest team in the NBA? Has anyone considered the fact that in order to tank for Wemby the spurs had to get rid of all their best players, and Wemby isn’t good enough yet to make up for that?

1. Youngest team in the league
2. To date has had the highest strength of schedule (suspect record will improve over time)
3. they jettisoned a lot of veteran help. That's how they got Wemby and a lot of upcoming picks
4. In the past couple of years all but two western conference teams (a large number of EC teams) made a concentrated effort to either make the playoffs and or contend. Maybe some foolishly.

[RobinsontoDuncan]

1. Youngest team in the league
2. To date has had the highest strength of schedule (suspect record will improve over time)
3. they jettisoned a lot of veteran help. That's how they got Wemby and a lot of upcoming picks
4. In the past couple of years all but two western conference teams (a large number of EC teams) made a concentrated effort to either make the playoffs and or contend. Maybe some foolishly.

Yes, AND, for all the bitching everyone here does, Pop has been developing all these guys. Let's look at Sochan for example. The difference from his debut last year to this year is night and day. Forget struggling as a PG, Jeremy had almost 0 offensive game when he came into the NBA. He couldn't shoot, couldn't his a FT, didn't know what he was doing on that end of the floor at all. Now he's developing PG skills. It is very upsetting that Vessel has regressed each year of defense, but it's hard to say how that's Pop's fault. His offensive improvement has been terrific however, from where he entered.

At the same time, the team is learning to play a high-IQ, motion-based system. That's hard to do for a bunch of teenagers and early 20-somethings. The benefits of all of this will be higher BB-IQ, more efficient offensive games later on.

[itzsoweezee]

Yes, AND, for all the bitching everyone here does, Pop has been developing all these guys. Let's look at Sochan for example. The difference from his debut last year to this year is night and day. Forget struggling as a PG, Jeremy had almost 0 offensive game when he came into the NBA. He couldn't shoot, couldn't his a FT, didn't know what he was doing on that end of the floor at all. Now he's developing PG skills. It is very upsetting that Vessel has regressed each year of defense, but it's hard to say how that's Pop's fault. His offensive improvement has been terrific however, from where he entered.

At the same time, the team is learning to play a high-IQ, motion-based system. That's hard to do for a bunch of teenagers and early 20-somethings. The benefits of all of this will be higher BB-IQ, more efficient offensive games later on.

So all improvements are due to pop, and all the ways they’ve regressed is due to personal failures? Wow. Talk about magical thinking, or is this just cognitive dissonance?

Meanwhile, the areas where the coach has the biggest impacts, the schemes, have been complete trash. Mid-2000s style defense is getting crushed every night. The offense is shit unless the shooters get hot like they did yesterday.

As a team, they’ve regressed in every category, on track to be among the worst in nba history — but don’t blame that on pop, right

[RobinsontoDuncan]

So all improvements are due to pop, and all the ways they’ve regressed is due to personal failures? Wow. Talk about magical thinking, or is this just cognitive dissonance?

Meanwhile, the areas where the coach has the biggest impacts, the schemes, have been complete trash. Mid-2000s style defense is getting crushed every night. The offense is shit unless the shooters get hot like they did yesterday.

As a team, they’ve regressed in every category, on track to be among the worst in nba history — but don’t blame that on pop, right

When I watch, the defensive issues with Vessel look more like effort issues than scheme, but if you think it's something else, I'm open to being persuaded.

[Obstructed_View]

At the same time, the team is learning to play a high-IQ, motion-based system. That's hard to do for a bunch of teenagers and early 20-somethings. The benefits of all of this will be higher BB-IQ, more efficient offensive games later on.

:lmao oh Jesus.

[RC_Drunkford]

yea the team is bad, but there's no way the youngest team in the league should get worse after a 22 win season, a full offseason where the majority of them worked out together all while adding Victor Wembanyama. That's on the coach more than anything.

Also the team seems to lack effort a lot of times and people always been talking about how Pop can motivate his players. I don't think these guys really take him serious like in the old days.

[MannyIsGod]

It’s both, and unfortunately we probably won’t move on from Pop and it’s probably not possible to completely overhaul the roster fast enough. Even if the GM went into turbo-mode on trying to remake the roster, it will be Wemby’s third or 4th season before he’s able to make discernible progress. By then, Wemby’s team will have already been thinking about being the first superstar to play under a QO and just go unto UFA after 5 years. Complete fucking disaster.

It’s wild how this ownership group apparently has no ability to recognize this. They should be directing the FO to begin the complete roster overhaul as soon as possible, so that this team looks significantly different in the second half of the season, and completely different to start next season.

They keep talking about wanting to see what they have… I don’t know what else is needed to be seen: they have nothing but Wemby and a steaming pile of shit.

The impact Kawhai leaving has had on the fan base is incredible. As much as I am down on this team right now in no way do I think Wemby isn't signing a max extension.

[MannyIsGod]

As for the poll, I think to an extent it's both but I think Pop is the predominant reason. Theres no reason this team has to be this bad on defense but and either the players are always fucking up and Pop isn't dealing with it or Pops scheme is just shit. I lean towards the latter. We help so fn much on shooters and the entire league destroys us from 3.

[scott]

The impact Kawhai leaving has had on the fan base is incredible. As much as I am down on this team right now in no way do I think Wemby isn't signing a max extension.

Oh no. Manny, you are the literal kiss of death. Please don't let this become your new Landon World Cup Lock moment.