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Pop already said he's staying for Kawhi. For all his craziness, who are we going to get that's better?
Thoughts?
Pop already said he's staying for Kawhi. For all his craziness, who are we going to get that's better?
Pop is still a great coach despite his stubbornness. I have to say his biggest strength always been the ability to reinvent himself after getting humiliated. It will be interesting to see what type of team him and RC build the next few years with the big 3 retiring.
Really don't need pop top step down, we need Becky to lean in and start calling plays, motivating players, and generally busting asses
The players know pop is fake and have responded.
And who you got replacing him?
lol wut? how about his biggest strength was having tim tony manu.
"reaches"
Duncan's wheels falling off in the middle of the season kinda ed the Spurs a bit, tbh.
I like what Vogel did in Indy tbh
Pop does his best work in the off season. Excellent at engineering a team and creating sets that bring out the strengths of his players. Biggest weaknesses are stubbornness and inability to adapt after a team exposes his system.
Quick Make a Thread About it.
Pop is one of those people that doesn't let bad results necessarily change his thinking. It's an admirable trait when he's right and frustrating when he's wrong.
It reminds me of an old experiment where a dart is loaded in a tube suspended above a paper target. It's high enough that it won't always hit the center (air currents, spin, etc. can slightly change its path). After every drop, the subjects choose whether to keep the target where it is or move it to where the previous dart hit. The ones who keep the target stationary have a much tighter cluster around the center than those who move the target each time.
You can say Tim was his biggest strength I'm fine with that but he had huge role in helping Manu and Tony be successful in the NBA. RC gets the credit for drafting those 2 but Pop gets the credit for giving them the opportunity to thrive and being patient with their development. Back in those days coaches were not willing to rely on and develop unknown foreign talent whereas today it's not a big deal. Pop was a pioneer in that regard. Pop was willing to dealing with the growing pains of both Manu and Tony whereas I doubt other coaches would have. Manu was an athletic talented versatile guard but he was injury prone even back then. On any other team I think a coach would have given up on him after his 5th injury instead of making him a major piece of the offense. In Tony's case he was a scrawny undersized SG with super athletic speed and great ball handling skills. Back then coaches didn't want those type of players to be their team's PG. Today these type of PG's are now the norm but they weren't back then. Granted Pop tried to replace Parker earlier with Kidd but give him credit sticking through with Parker even though he wasn't the traditional PG that Pop preferred . Pop also did a good of job of finding roles for young players that people had given up on in Jax,Neal,Devin Brown,Malik Rose,Green,Mills. Pop was able to incorporate these guys in his system whereas many other coaches wouldn't have been able to find a use for them outside of Jax. Pop also did a good job of developing George Hill into a solid player that netted the Spurs Kawhi Leonard. Obviously we have seen how Pop has adjusted every year in the way he has utilized Kawhi in the offense. I don't think Kawhi is the type of player he is today if he played for a different coach as Pop.
Give credit to Pop for reinventing the Spur's offense after a horrible 2010 season in which the spurs only won 50 games. Prior to the '10-'11 the Spurs were never a top offensive team but Pop focused on better ball movement and a great motion offense. Granted that team ended up losing to the Grizzlies it still paved the way for "The beautiful game" type of offense down the road. This team's offense is all Kawhi and LMA iso's right now but I'm sure Pop will change that up next season based on the offseason moves the spurs make.
Another Pop strength is that he has credibility with players due to his championship success. This is a league where it's hard to get respect immediately by players and keep it unless you are a proven winner. Shaq said it best many years ago when he said that prior to playing for Phil and Riley he didn't give coaches respect because he felt they had zero credibility since they weren't proven champion. Respect may seem like a little thing but it is really a big deal because without respect it's impossible to implement a successful system.
With all that being said Pop's weakness are that he's not good at making adjustments in a playoff series. He tends to rarely make adjustments when they are needed in the playoffs and just goes along with his original plan when its not working. Another weakness he has that at times he relies on veteran players that are over the hill. He also unfairly puts guys in the dog house that don't deserve to be there. Pop is not perfect but they are very few coaches out there that are better.
Last edited by daslicer; 05-11-2016 at 09:59 PM.
Shaka Smart
I watched a lot of VCU games when Shaka was the coach. He's a great defensive coach but he sucks offensively.
Coaches can get better. People used to say pop sucked offensively.
This is true but it took Pop many years to get better at the offensive end.
When they used to say it, they were often right. But it was okay early on in his career in SA because in the late '90's, defense was just about the only thing that mattered. He had the twin towers and then he had Tim, where every single play called was "four down". That wasn't exactly a mental challenge to give the ball to Tim on the offense and then play defense like crazy. When the league started putting in rules that limited the defensive plays (hand checking, etc.), and when Tim's knees started giving way, Pop re-tooled the offense.
Player development has always been a huge factor for Pop, and he developed his players into the offense that the league would let him play.
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