Reply With Quote
Pop was slow to adjust to the new offensive philosophy in the league, and thus it's no surprise he has also been slow to adjust on defense too. You can't play defense the same way now as you could get away with even 8 years ago.
If it's the coach then why would Pop not care about dfense when he stressed defense and was a great defensive coach in the past?
That doesn't makle sense how he doesn't care anymore unless he's tanking again for another high draft pick.
The players aren't as good as people think they are or both the coach not stressing wins and the players not good enough.
Pop was slow to adjust to the new offensive philosophy in the league, and thus it's no surprise he has also been slow to adjust on defense too. You can't play defense the same way now as you could get away with even 8 years ago.
What is wild is that The Beautiful Game helped usher in this new era of offense. As an offensive coach Pop has been part of the evolution. But it seems to me that Pop has been slow to make the defensive adjustments to go with that evolution.
Caring about defense is not at all the same as having the ability to teach defense at a practical, nuts and bolts level. Actual coaching is instructional. Pep talks don’t teach any player anything about how to play the game. If all it took was to shout, go team go, then the Coyote ought to be the head coach.
But most of the basic instruction has to be on the assistant coaches. They don’t appear to be very good at their jobs.
The stuff missing is basic that a high school coach will notice. Not collapsing the paint, stick to the shooters, simple switches, box out for rebounds. That’s not even pro level stuff. It’s impossible for any coach at any level, let alone a legendary nba coach not to notice these things and correct it.
I have to say it’s beyond frustrating to watch.
The only one who plays defense is Wemby and the rest of the players just plain suck! Sick of watching Collins not moving fast enough/leaving his man open for uncontested 3 pointer and then can't rebound for his life or if he gets the ball his defenders pulls it out of his weak arms! Then everyone else standing around and not staying with their man just letting them have a slam dunk with no one guarding the paint!
I've never seen a bunch of underachievers and I've been a fan of Spurs forever! Wemby, Vassell, Tre and Johnson are the only good ones on this team! Bassey plays well as center when weak Collins subs out and at least plays some defense! Sochan has disappointed me as he refuses to dish the ball to Wemby when he's open and gives it to Collins for the brick! WTF!
Our D is flacid.
Losing one's man on a shot happens far too often for an NBA team, I don't care how young we are.
Spurs are playing G league level guys with a potential 2nd tier star and Wemby. Results as expected.
One of the things hurting the Spurs is that they keep drafting a bunch of 19-year-olds instead of upperclassmen. It's very hard to tell who's a defensive ace their first couple of years. Guys like Green, White and Hill were seniors. Kawhi was a sop re but at least had a lot of high-profile games guarding college stars. Obviously there are 19-year-old NBA players to end up being good defenders. But when you draft nothing but raw players, you get this. Even Wemby is extremely raw defensively, and his actual skills don't match the fear factor his profile engenders. His effort level is also really dependent on how many minutes he's played and his temperament. Going forward, the team needs to be using some of their draft picks to select for floor rather than ceiling. Hopefully this is the last year they build their rotation based on development rather than performance. They badly need to start building a meritocratic culture rather than one built by pre-draft scouting reports.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
