Reply With Quote
Why not give us all something else to talk about? If you really think other coaches (who are not currently employed) could do a better job with the Spurs than Pop, I'd be interested in actually discussing that contention.
If that's what you want to believe. If I did give you a list, you'd just dismiss it anyway, so I'm happy to skip that inane discussion.
Why not give us all something else to talk about? If you really think other coaches (who are not currently employed) could do a better job with the Spurs than Pop, I'd be interested in actually discussing that contention.
I would be interested to see a list of all NBA past and present that s/he thinks is better than Pop. I am not saying Pop is the best of all-time, but he belongs to a short list of NBA coaches who belongs to the top.
"Hill's 3-16 start in 1996 had more to do with injuries to David Robinson, Sean Elliott, Chuck Person, and Vinnie Del Negro." Yet you claim the players wanted him ousted. Okay.
.4 why is it even that close? 2-0 after two blowouts, Phil switches to pick n roll with Payton. What did Popped do to adjust?
2006 indeed no Manu brainfart and Spurs win and likely le. Again, why was it close? Smallballs with Mike Finley at the PF puts us down 3-1. I will give an asterisk to the Bavetta game. No coach could have overcome that thrown crap.
Hill was fired because the Spurs were soft and starting to play even softer without Robinson. They could score, but they were soft.
Wow
A look at who Pop is, from June '05, after game 1 of the Finals.
NBA: Popovich leads with military precision
Liz Robbins
SAN ANTONIO, Texas: Were it not for the officer on the military base at Diyarbakir, in southern Turkey, during the early 1970s, the Spurs might not be in the NBA finals today.
But Gregg Popovich, who majored in Soviet Studies at the Air Force Academy, where he played four seasons for the basketball team and was top scorer in his last year, enjoyed traveling as much as he loved basketball. When a general told him early in his tour to leave his counterintelligence work and go TDY- on temporary duty for the U.S. Armed Forces basketball team in Eastern Europe - Popovich found a permanent calling.
He took his curiosity and appreciation for foreign cultures with him as currency, and it has paid dividends now with the Spurs.In games against the Soviet Union before the fateful 1972 Olympics, and against countless others from Estonia, Latvia, Yugoslavia Popovich developed his worldview that helped bring memorable names to the NBA.
The Spurs boast the most diverse roster in a league steadily populated by international players: Popovich's team flies the flags of Argentina, France, Slovenia, New Zealand, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the United States.
"The opportunities I got in the military to travel with basketball really made me understand how much basketball is played around the world, how many good players there are," Popovich said Friday after the Spurs had taken the early 1-0 lead over the Pistons in the best-of-seven-game NBA finals.
"I always thought what a great way to combine my own personal enjoyment with professional responsibilities. So we made a commitment when we came that we were going to hit the streets out there in the other countries, and we were going to find bodies."
After his six years of military service, Popovich started his coaching career at Pomona-Pitzer, a California college playing in NCAA division III. He first joined the Spurs as an assistant coach under Larry Brown, now the Pistons' coach, in 1988. Sixteen years later, Popovich, 56, enters Sunday's Game 2 three victories from winning his third NBA le in seven seasons.
The man who could have been a spy has, instead, stealthily commanded the fourth-best winning percentage of any coach in NBA history (.661).
Popovich will be the first to say that having No.1 picks - David Robinson, from the U.S. Naval Academy, and Tim Duncan, from Wake Forest, via the Virgin Islands - helped him earn that distinction. But the unconditional respect he has from all his players propelled the Spurs' success.
Popovich's demanding yet caring relationship with his players holds the team together, R.C. Buford, the general manager, said. Popovich flew to the island of St. Croix to get to know Duncan before the Spurs drafted him in 1997. He attended Tony Parker's arbitration trial with his French basketball team in 2001.
Back in San Antonio, Popovich pushed, prodded and yelled at Parker, a 19-year-old rookie point guard, instilling military toughness on the court, while building his confidence.
"Pop just wants the best out of you," the veteran forward Robert Horry said. "He's going to be on you hard, I mean really hard, so if you have the mental toughness to take that, you're going to develop well as a player."
With Parker and Manu Ginobili, Popovich learned to discipline their games without stifling their creativity.
"He's the best thing that could have happened to those guys," the assistant coach, P.J. Carlesimo, said. "You got to let them play the way they are, and Pop recognized that about them right away."
Over the past two years, Parker and Ginobili have learned to read Popovich and his sarcasm. Witness the first quarter of Game 1 when the Spurs fell behind, 17-4, and Popovich had to call two timeouts.
"I asked them, if it wasn't too much trouble, if I wasn't being too pushy, if they could execute what we were trying to do, and, if it didn't make them too angry, if they also wanted to play some defense on the other end, that would be great," Popovich said after the game.
Ginobili got the point, especially when seeing Popovich's face.
"You get worried, because there's a vein here that just gets so big, you think it's going to explode," Ginobili said "He's a smart coach. He knows how to get the best from his team. He's got that temperament that he gets very upset, and he's not afraid to tell anything to anybody. So everybody feels the same situation; I think it's really good for the spirit of the team."
Players call Popovich's invective-laced tirades, "going Serbian." When Hedo Turkoglu of Turkey was on the team with current center Rasho Nesterovic from Slovenia, Popovich would actually converse in broken Serbian with them.
"That's something that those guys don't get a lot of places," Buford said. "It just adds to the relationship. It doesn't cement it, but it sure puts it in a different perspective. Those guys know he is making an attempt to be one of them."
Despite his time in Eastern Europe, Popovich insists he speaks only one language fluently: English. Popovich frequently quizzes his players on national politics, though his intellectual curiosity sometimes gets lost in translation.
In trying to loosen the mood before Game 1, Popovich talked about the National Spelling Bee. "I wanted to know if anybody knew the word that won - it was 'appoggiatura,"' he said. "Of course, none of us had heard of the thing."
Some players had not heard of the contest, and Popovich had to explain it three times. "Manu was like, 'Spelling bees? Where are the bees?"' Popovich said.
Popovich has always reveled in this communicating challenge. "Most people just didn't believe it; they didn't want foreign kids, thinking they didn't speak English and it's going to be a pain," he said.
In 1988, Popovich persuaded Brown and the Spurs' general manager, Bob Bass, to send him to Cologne, to scout players at the Euroleague championships. There, Popovich established a relationship with his first prospect: Zarco Paspalj. (The forward from Yugoslavia lasted one season with the Spurs, as Brown disliked his defense and poor conditioning).
Buford mined Parker, who is French, with the 28th overall pick in 2001. Ginobili, an Argentine, was the 57th pick in the 1999 draft and did not join the Spurs until 2002. The Spurs last year drafted Luis Scola, Ginobili's teammate on Argentina's gold-medal-winning team at the Athens Olympics last summer.
^^ 2005 was Pops finest year. No dispute here on that.
His ad-just-ment in letting the Spurs play some open O vs Phx was fabulous.
So do you want a 5th le or are you good with Pops 4 too?
I suggest you read up on how the players were dissatisfied with how Bob Hill didn't put much emphasis on defense, even in the year they won 62 games.
In the mean time, you sound like these guys:
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/archive/index.php/t-1446.html
I suggest you read how these same players, oh wait with Duncan added did in Poppeds 1st full year.
and STFU and troll off.
The story I've always heard -- from the day that Hill was fired, basically -- was that the core players on that team went to Pop and urged him to take over as head coach. That wasn't such a crazy idea, since there were many who believed that Pop should have taken over as head coach when he was hired in the summer of 1994 as GM and given free reign to choose the next head coach.
It's never struck me as surprising that Pop takes responsiblity for that decision as his own, given that Pop would never sell out his players because Pop knows unquestionably that the NBA game is a players' game. In part, Pop has the respect of most of the NBA players (evident if you go to just about any Spurs game) because he's decidedly pro-players on just about everything.
The difference between 2004 and 2006 and the inconsistency in the Pop haters' arguments about those series never ceases to amaze me.
In 2004, Pop "didn't adjust" against a great team and he was at fault.
In 2006, Pop "adjusted" against a very good team and he was at fault.
"Not currently employed" is a figment of your imagination. I said I didn't think he qualified as "one of the best". I'm not reframing the argument to appease your need to prove someone wrong.
If you MUST have some names, I honestly believe Jerry Sloan, Byron Scott, and Phil Jackson are head and shoulders better than Pop (in terms of head coach). Since my qualification of "one of the best" in terms of current coaches would be top 10%, that would eliminate Pop right there. There's a couple others I'm blanking on the names of (I'm horrid with names) that are close to Pop.
There's another couple I think might develop into better head coaches than Pop over the next few years, but that's irrelevant.
There's also several past coaches who were easily better than Pop in their day, but it's a bit difficult to compare that since the game has changed tremendously even over the last 20 years.
So I'll expect your "The Spurs would have 7 les if Bob Hill was still the coach" thread next?I suggest you read how these same players, oh wait with Duncan added did in Poppeds 1st full year.
and STFU and troll off.
Some players had not heard of the contest, and Popovich had to explain it three times. "Manu was like, 'Spelling bees? Where are the bees?"' Popovich said.Thanks I had never read that article before...
No. Nor do i expect you will troll off.
opPopapologists while you have no need to respond I'm sure you feel the need to troll in.
Of course I want a 5th. I want to see Duncan go out with as many as possible. And Duncan plays for, and believes in, Pop. I'm thrilled with the 4 we've gotten under Pop's leadership, and I'm confidant he can do it again.
What does that have to do with Bob Hill getting fired?I suggest you read how these same players, oh wait with Duncan added did in Poppeds 1st full year.
and STFU and troll off.
BTW, I sort of think I know what you are talking about, but are you actually talking about the 96-97 season, or the 97-98 season?
Why is Fabbs trying to censor other posters in advance?
They can post wherever they want.
I can see you going for Phil Jackson being head and shoulders above Pop, but Sloan and Popovich are so similar in their approaches that they are pretty much considered equal at best for Sloan. Besides, if people are ragging on Pop about his inept offense, check what Sloan did with the Jazz in the 97 and 98 finals.
Byron Scott is a fantastic coach in his own right, but there were some obvious mistakes that he made along the way. Pop adjusted well in the New Orleans series vs. Scott, and outcoached him in the later part of the series. Scott failed to utilize his bench effectively and resulted in a bunch of exhausted starters by the end of the series, he also needlessly left David West in a blow out game, resulting in unnecessary injury that ultimately hurts the Hornets.
I don’t know how you can call the last two head and shoulders above Pop, but given that you said that it was your opinion, you can always have that to fall back on, just means that you have an opinion that most basketball minds don’t share.
Last edited by ambchang; 10-02-2008 at 03:50 PM.
We need to troll of I heard. Being a troll, such as saying Pop is a good coach, is unaccepted behaviour on Spurstalk.
I'm sorry that you don't like being called on your absurdity.
It's interesting that you don't really have a substantive response to those who question your premise.
I know you aren't real bright, and I know your reading comprehension could use some work, but please tell me you aren't so stupid that you'd accuse me of being an apologist. If you can call Pop taking over a team plagued with injuries that did NOT have Tim Duncan, and was at no time mathematically likely to get him, coattail riding, but can't say the same about Phil Jackson going where the talent is, then you have a huge problem. Oh wait, it's you.As opposed to Pop who ousted Bob Hill and took over with Duncan, DRob and co in his 1st full year. Yeah no coatail riding there. Popapologism at its finest.
Fight the good fight, Fabbs!
Let no logic or reason stand in the face of what you assume to be true!
After all, if you say it is so, it must be, right?
"Quality not quan y."
One Realist is worth a million of you trolls.
I am thinking of entering the Pop dolls selling field tho.
What a market! Right here at ST.
PopDoll buyers slogans:
"4 for 12, not 8 for 12!"
"No repeat. We repeat, No repeat." (Repeat over and over.)
No More O!, No More O!
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
