Random Thoughts: Spurs @ Jazz - Dec. 4, 2018

[DPG21920]

I think everyone knows SA has done a great job overall. Past two years is tough. My issue is that there are some obvious free agent whiffs & regardless the main issue is pop putting what he does have in the worst situation possible.

[DPG21920]

Timvp: Even bad teams usually play hard on offense. So to me, SA being top 10 isn’t indicative of effort or focus or respect. It’s not that the guys are just playing poor to their talent level; it’s that they aren’t even putting effort forth.

[SAGirl]

You don’t go down double digits in 58% of your games along with 3 30 point losses without some form of the team tuning out the coach.

This type of quitting on a coach would never look the same as other poisonous situations because of the players and coach, but something beyond talent and poor coaching is happening

You can't have a team led by Paddy Mills in 2018-19. This is what you get.

[therealtruth]

Timvp: Even bad teams usually play hard on offense. So to me, SA being top 10 isn’t indicative of effort or focus or respect. It’s not that the guys are just playing poor to their talent level; it’s that they aren’t even putting effort forth.

This pretty much usually points to the coach. You see the same pattern over when a team is not putting the effort defensively and they change the coach and they start competing defensively. I think Pop relied far too much on the big 3 for leadership. Now there's a leadership void and he's not filling it. Instead he's calling Patty Mills the leader.

[SAGirl]

signing forbes/beli/gay in the same offseason, one year removed from signing patty shows how much they've prioritized defense.

in the same offseason we lost our 3 best wing defenders

Yup. I mean one would say this suckage and defensively challenged team is by design.

[objective]

I respect the frustration but I think that's a little overly dramatic, tbh.

And even if the FO is terrible at signing free agents, the most important thing going forward is the draft. For a small market rebuilding team, the draft is much, much, much more important than free agent decisions ... so the Spurs are set in that regard going forward, unless someone wants to make the argument that the current FO can't draft.

This what I posted a few days ago about the draft:

The draft is like defense:

If you don't secure the defensive rebound or get possession, you didn't do it right.

With the draft, it's good that RC and company could identify so many players and draft them, but without signing them they don't deserve full credit.

Identifying Milutinov or Hanga or Scola or Blossomgame (potentially) etc etc is great and all but they need to sign those players and get the value of the draft rights.

The draft by itself doesn't wave away their other problems. Bad choices and signings will squander the years of even the best players. The Pelicans have wasted most of Davis's years with idiotic overpays on players who were transitioning out of the league (Asik) and other bad deals and trades.

Anyways, there's nothing dramatic about it, just plain obviousness. I know you disappeared after 2013 or whatever it was, but the run up to that 2017 summer and the choices regarding Mills and his free agency was obvious to those in the know. But it was like a slow-motion trainwreck. All the buffoons like Zach Lowe or Nate Duncan who were talking like the Spurs got Mills on a good deal exposed themselves for fools.

Marco wasn't them learning from their mistakes, it was them tripling down with their fingers in their ears, yelling.

[tenbeersbold]

Spurs look bad but lets just say it...The League/Silver has it in for the Spurs
C'mon Spurs get 10 FT's against the Jazz.FFS they are a fouling dream team

Last game Portland came out practically mauling guys,that green light came straight from the league hq
Portland doesn't normally play that intense D,that one sequence where White got thrown down in front of the basket right in front of the baseline ref??? White proceeded to dog Aminu and harass him into a turnover but still that was unreal and at HOME

Pop wagging the dog with his comments about the product the NBA is engineering was right but he's put an even bigger target right on SA's back
DDR and Lamarcus are getting mauled out there and it's not being called,I can't really blame them for not giving it their all,how the are SA supposed to play when the other side can maul your star players at will but SA can't breath on the other teams players.

LA is the only player besides Lebron to score over 1000 pts a season for the last decade plus.
Let that sink in and the lack of respect he gets from the refs compared to "He-who-cannot-be-breathed-on"

Add in injuries to Murray,Pau,Walker and Rudy hobbling...uggh its ugly but it doesn't help when the boot of the League is applying the pressure
These new rules are even more prone for fixing as they can be selectively enforced as we've seen so far,what a surprise...

[spurs10]

Spurs look bad but lets just say it...The League/Silver has it in for the Spurs
C'mon Spurs get 10 FT's against the Jazz.FFS they are a fouling dream team

Last game Portland came out practically mauling guys,that green light came straight from the league hq
Portland doesn't normally play that intense D,that one sequence where White got thrown down in front of the basket right in front of the baseline ref??? White proceeded to dog Aminu and harass him into a turnover but still that was unreal and at HOME

Pop wagging the dog with his comments about the product the NBA is engineering was right but he's put an even bigger target right on SA's back
DDR and Lamarcus are getting mauled out there and it's not being called,I can't really blame them for not giving it their all,how the are SA supposed to play when the other side can maul your star players at will but SA can't breath on the other teams players.

LA is the only player besides Lebron to score over 1000 pts a season for the last decade plus.
Let that sink in and the lack of respect he gets from the refs compared to "He-who-cannot-be-breathed-on"

Add in injuries to Murray,Pau,Walker and Rudy hobbling...uggh its ugly but it doesn't help when the boot of the League is applying the pressure
These new rules are even more prone for fixing as they can be selectively enforced as we've seen so far,what a surprise...

Good post. No one has seen this in the last couple of decades- the Spurs losing more than winning. I thought what timvp said was interesting about whether he'll stick with Bertans as a starter, or whether Gay is able to remain in the starting lineup. I do think White has to start and I won't be surprised to see his minutes go up tonight.

[polandprzem]

yea welll.... if White played 2 minutes more we would be victorious ...


Bertrans again was not god as a starter


Overall this team looks lost and have no iden y

[TD 21]

timvp taking shots at Pop . . . never thought I'd see the day. I guess that means he's now officially a spoiled pessimist.

I don't know that the players have quit on Pop necessarily, I think it just hit them at some point that neither Pop's (overrated) presence or any amount of attention to detail is going to give them a chance in of being so much as competent defensively.

Couple that with their archaic offense and lack of a starting PG and they lack the firepower to win based on their offense.

Once that realization hit, they became demoralized. Now they just stagger around in a daze, seemingly waiting for the other shoe to drop and this iteration to be put out of its misery.

Each day that goes by, Kawhi Leonard is looking more and more like the smartest man in the world to walk away from the dumpster fire that is the San Antonio Spurs.

Let the tanking begin my friends.

No, he's looking like what he's looked like for over a year now: a coward and a s bag. No amount of degree of Spurs suckage justifies his behavior.

[SAGirl]

This just isn't an option, tbh. They probably won't start selling off pieces unless they are at or below .500 near the February deadline.

Even then, they might convince themselves to run it back next year with Murray, a high pick and "internal improvement"

I think you are right but I hope to God no. Theres some players that shouldn't be back. You know if they are back Pop will play them. Please firesale, please.

[SAGirl]

Problem is, this isn't a one player problem. It's a roster issue that has taken years to develop (or mishandle...). Getting a player like Beal, Walker, Murray, Wilt Chamberlain, whatever, won't solve the fact that we have guys like Cunningham, injured 40 year old Pau, soft old school LMA, midget Forbes/Mills effectively as SG, relying on DeRozan to be a perimeter defender, etc.. The new NBA is about guys like Jaren Jackson Jr, Doncic, and Tobias Harris, (long and agile, multi-skilled, almost positionless) and mobile bigs who can switch and rebound/finish, not put up fadeaway 20 foot jumpers all day.

All 3 of those guys can shoot the 3 well and finish inside. Their bread and butter isn't the midrange. Their offense is a lot more varied.

[koriwhat]

I knew Beli was going to be bad, but he has exceeded my expectations. Worst player on the team, and it ain't close.

i was somewhat happy for his signing but damn he's been horrible this season.

[Amuseddaysleeper]

The only thing kawhi leaving did was expose patfo for the frauds that they are.

Yup, Kawhi was surrounded by trash sadly

[DAF86]

Yup, Kawhi was surrounded by trash sadly

Trash doesn't win you 47 games on a NBA season. I hope we still had last season "trash".

[Amuseddaysleeper]

Trash doesn't win you 47 games on a NBA season. I hope we still had last season "trash".

That team overachieved. Lost all of our perimeter defenders in Ka, and green and Kawhi

LMA can’t play for with another all star