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2003.
Damn, when do you guys sleep? I hope ya'll work nights!
2003.
Popovich's best coaching job: having Tim Duncan.
wtf gives a , he seems to win games when his dress up for the game....pink shirt...
I say 2007... those calls he made for Horry to bump Steve Nash into the scorers table and Tony Parker to head butt Steve Nash in game 1 where freaking genious!!
2007 by far. The only good coaching decision I've ever seen by Pop in the playoffs was the adjustment to put Vaughn under the basket so he could score layups when his man left him. There were actually some productive inbounds plays as well. The rest of the time he helps the team by getting out of the way and letting them do what they do.
A big point for the 2003 coaching job would be that the Spurs system as we know it today, whilst still in place in 2003, wasn't as well oiled and didn't have the players who would follow instructions as stritcly as today.
Parker, Buckets and Ginobili were all quite erratic, and still learning the NBA game. Reputations, which are important in the playoffs in regards to referees were not as strong. There wasn't the big game experience from the core players as there is from the core today. A lot of what had to be done, was new, and hadn't yet been experienced. Breaking through for the first ring with that core of players called for a really exceptional coaching performance.
So I think 2003 would be the best coaching job, but I will say that he did have 2003 Tim Duncan. The only player who has played as well as Tim did in those playoffs post Jordan, would be Shaq.
(Btw, in case anyone cares, I was all for Jack getting major minutes/starting early that season... I always thought the Spurs needed that youth, the "Anti-Spur" as he was called..)
The reason I changed my mind about the 2007 team being the best coached...
Because it had the easiest road to the championship, and I'm still not certain it would have beaten the Mavs.
Other than that...I do think Pop did some of his best coaching last season...when he team was playing like complete crap and he told them they were going with what they had and no trades would be made...
Say what? I would have been for Beno starting over Smith, so you know I was down with Jack getting the job. Jack did have a really impressive summer league performance that season, but he was awful the year before.Smitty sucked but so did Jack to that point of his Spurs career. In fact, on the Spurs forums, the only two fans where for Jackson starting at the time were SpursFan and Ghost Writer. (That might have been the only time they ever agreed)
The 2004 Spurs didn't miss Danny Ferry, Steve Smith, or Kevin Willis. They lost because Hedo Turkoglu couldn't replace Stephen Jackson's shooting in the playoffs, because Jason Hart was 1/10th the point guard Speedy Claxton was, and because Bruce went cold from outside (the only time Bowen hasn't produced in the playoffs).
Obviously losing David hurt, but Rasho did a decent job, unlike Hedo or Hart.
man... i remember hedo having an awesome year as far as 3pfg% is concerned during the regular season. i can recall thinking that if he had just hit for anywhere in the general ball park of his reg season stats we'd have been much better off.
ugh.
I would have settled for Hedo just moving his feet to catch a pass.
mike my ass
I remember the exact game Jackson won the starting job.
Early November game vs the Lakers.
3 time champions, Spurs are getting their asses handed to em in the first quarter.
Jackson comes in and starts bagging threes, pop starts him in the third, and jackson helps the team go on to win the game by like 10 I think.
Never saw smitty again.
BTW, great night to win a TV too
This is a great thread, whott.
Having voted for 2003, I'd like to make the "case for" the other three teams, for the sake of argument:
1999 - In a 50 game season, a bad start shouldn't grant time enough to recover from it. Well, the 1999 Spurs, loaded with veteran talent who made a point of practicing during the lockout period, started 6-8 - during which time the Spurs lost games to potential future playoff opponents like Utah and the Lakers.
Yet, the Spurs finished 31-5, tied for the best record in the NBA (with the tiebreak) and finished with a huge point differential, far and away #1 in the league. Of course, one can attribute that to the veteran leadership that the 1999 team certainly had in spades; OTOH, the way the Spurs finished the season demonstrates the sort of credibility Popovich had with the players. In similar cir stances, on many other teams, it's not difficult to imagine a bunch of veterans turning on the (still unproven, just in his second full season) head coach *coughLakersandDelHarriscough*.
1999 was the first serious test of the Jacob Riis "Stonecutter" quote, and the team passed that test with flying colors. Pop got the players to buy into it, and that persistence was rewarded. And it's hard to claim that another Spurs team defended as well as the 1999ers.
Was the Memorial Day Miracle nothing if not the 1999 season in microcosm?
2005 - As whott pointed out, Pop kept the ship afloat while Duncan was out with the ankle injury. As a result, the Spurs finished with a great record (2nd in the NBA) and the top point differential - they closed out the season 9-8 after Duncan's injury in Detroit, which is certainly a respectable W/L record in his absence.
The WC playoffs more or less played out as they should have - interesting (to me, anyway) that the 2005 and 2007 Spurs had the same playoff record (12-4) after the conference finals. The 2005 Finals will always be memorable because of the quality of the compe ion - Detroit was so tenacious and resilient in that series that the Spurs were probably in for a seven game series no matter what. Although I suppose Pop could have played Tony for 48 minutes in game three?
2007 - Pop earned his crust right in the middle of the regular season when he challenged the team in the media and in the locker room. He harshly criticized the team after the home loss to Milwaukee, then he later made it clear that the team wouldn't be trading for a player to save the season. IMO, Pop rescued the team from complacency - after losing a seven game series to the WC champs, the Spurs played at a super high level in the first five weeks of last season before settling into the rut Pop blasted them out of.
The 2007 playoffs, judging by results, seemed to be the least strenous for any Spurs championship teams.
walking into the 07 playoffs i thought it had the potential to be the toughest of all the le runs... i mean a clicking denver squad, 60 win phx team, and "one of the best records of all time" dallas team. after that you had a possible rematch with detroit on the horizon and it all looked pretty daunting. it all just kinda desolved into a semi calk walk.
Yep, but you know what? All that good luck in the 2007 playoffs balances off some of the bad luck in 2004 and 2006.
The 2004 Spurs didn't miss Danny Ferry, Steve Smith, or Kevin Willis. They lost because Hedo Turkoglu couldn't replace Stephen Jackson's shooting in the playoffs, because Jason Hart was 1/10th the point guard Speedy Claxton was, and because Bruce went cold from outside (the only time Bowen hasn't produced in the playoffs).
Obviously losing David hurt, but Rasho did a decent job, unlike Hedo or Hart.
Eh...it would have been nice to have Ferry to get some minutes on Malone.
Willis was not the same player that year he was the previous year...
I agree about Smitty.
I disagree vehemently that losing the Admiral didn't hurt us much...
Shaq dominated us in that series...for the first time...Kobe didn't get us that series, Shaq did. And our interior defense was completely weak. Shaq and Malone manhandled us....Drob was the best Shaq and Malone stopper in the NBA his final years in the NBA. Even Ferry would have helped some...if only because he could piss guys off.
Bruce sucked because LA kicked his butt with pics...
Kerr would have been better than Hedo...
Kerr would have helped if only because Phil wouldn't doubled off him...and since they were doubling both Duncan and Parker...that would have been huge.
Yeah...losing Kerr, Drob, and even Ferry, were reasons we lost the following year. And Willis completely declined,. Hedo was big reason too.
I never meant to imply losing Smitty was a reason we lost....
Pop won Coach of the year in 2003. Has anybody taken that in account? I haven't read the thread to see if anybody has mentioned it.
I think castration is preferable to reading "Beno" and "Championship experience" in the same post ever again.
I vote for 2003 too
TP was very young, Manu a rookie and Jax a question mark
I remember ESPN Brazil showed the 1st game of the season, at LA and I was very mad at Smith, because the terrible 2002 playoffs. So i had high hopes for Jax and Manu;
Manu played well for his 1st NBA game but Jax was terrible, I remember he missed everything, including a easy slam. Pop did a grwat job in beliaving Jax
In 2003 Pop also had to make a huge adjustment in game 2 against the Suns, a must win game and he didn't have Robinson and Willis
He started Ferry who played with a lot of heart and helped in the close win
1999 is still me favorite championship, but 2003 for me.
the 2003 spurs beat the three time defending champion lakers on their floor by 28 points.
they beat the pain in the *** suns who seems to have the spurs number. they were the team that everybody picked to upset the #1 seed. and they had that kind of magic that the warriors against the mavs, with stoudamire and starbury chunking up threes to win game 1.
they beat a mav team that had offense on speed dial. i thought that should have been a sweep, but with 50 mav free throws in game 1 and the loss of offense in the middle of game 5, they put a scare into the spurs. they even had the spurs down by 10 before the run (that kerr seems to get all the credit for, even though that isn't true) and destroyed the mavs in the fourth quarter.
they beat the nets who were on their second consecutive trip to the finals.
in fact, that was the fourth quarter year when the spurs made huge runs with offense and defense. definitely the best coaching job.
worst coaching job? either 2000 or 2001, though 2006 will get a lot of votes in here.
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