From My Understanding POP Will...

[TD 21]

No one is saying the Spurs didn't get lucky as with their #1 picks. I'm saying getting that #1 pick isn't enough, which you can see from the lack of success the Spurs had after drafting David Robinson and the Cavs after drafting LeBron despite having transcendent stars who really wanted to be there. I don't have faith in Bob Hill or Jerry Tarkanian pulling the team together after that humiliating loss to Utah at home on NBC and basically running the table the rest of the 99 season. I don't have faith in Bob Hill or Jerry Tarkanian turning shrimp ass Tony Parker into a guy who could dump 26 on Jason Kidd in a critical road Finals game or making angry ass Stephen Jackson into an elite defender. As ridiculous as Tim was in 02-03 that wouldn't have been enough to win the le that year without Pop's work with Parker and Jackson. I have no faith in Bob Hill or Jerry Tarkanian being able to pull that 2013 team up after the most crushing loss in NBA history to be right there in position to win Game 7 and then having to start all over again, and actually win it the next year. Only thing I have ever seen like it was the 89 Pistons after having their 88 le stolen from them, and they were also guided by a legendary coach.

Pop is one of the greatest things to ever happen to the franchise. Not nearly as great as landing Tim Duncan, but still critical to having five banners up in the rafters. Thank god he didn't get fired and replaced with Doc Rivers in 1999 like was heavily rumored at the time, you want to see where coaching makes a difference look how much Rivers has underachieved with stacked rosters.

But these weren't just any #1 picks and there were two of them, playing at the time the most important position in the sport essentially simultaneously.

The core pulled the team together over a meeting at I believe Johnson's house because they knew they were underachieving and liked Pop and didn't want to see him get fired for it.

The rest of that paragraph is just the usual giving him the credit for the players success crap while unfairly ting on the bi-racial coach. No specific examples of what he supposedly did or the latter supposedly didn't.

[Stump]

Number one picks in the lottery era to win a championship with the team that drafted him without leaving first: David Robinson, Tim Duncan and Kyrie Irving. And Irving is only on the list because LeBron came back. If LeBron didn't come back, Irving's Cavs would have never broke 35 wins, tbh. In the last 20 years, how many picks 2, 3 or 4 have won championships with the team that drafted him? Off the top of my head, there was Darko with the Pistons ... and that's about it. Wade won with the Heat as the fifth pick. Top five picks leading to championships in the last 20 years being Wade and Darko is a huge strike against the idea that tanking is the path to championships, if anyone cares to be honest.

Spurs fans got spoiled by Duncan and Robinson and think that all you need is a top pick and championships will follow. That's not how it works in reality, tbh.

I just ran through the last 20 years in my head, and this is surprisingly accurate. Top picks have simply not translated to championships. However, I would gently push back and assert that the previous 20 years (1980-1999) have included several good examples, listed below. Note that this covers every championship in this era except for the 1983 76ers.

Michael Jordan (3rd, 1984) 6 les for Bulls
Scottie Pippen (5th, 1987) 6 les for Bulls
Hakeem Olajuwon (1st, 1984) 2 les for Rockets
Larry Bird (6th, 1978) 3 les for Celtics
Kevin McHale (3rd, 1980) 3 les for Celtics
Magic Johnson (1st, 1979) 5 les for Lakers
James Worthy (1st, 1982) 3 les for Lakers
Isiah Thomas (2nd, 1981) 2 les for Pistons
Tim Duncan (1st, 1997) 1 le in this referenced era, but 5 total les for Spurs
David Robinson (1st, 1987) 1 le in this referenced era, but 2 total les for Spurs

So, how much of the change is due to the inherent variability of small sample sizes, and how much due to trends such as the increased frequency of stars moving to big markets and/or super teams? When I started writing this post, I was leaning toward the former, but now after collecting the information I think it's the latter. The shift starting in 2000 is jarring.

[baseline bum]

But these weren't just any #1 picks and there were two of them, playing at the time the most important position in the sport essentially simultaneously.

The core pulled the team together over a meeting at I believe Johnson's house because they knew they were underachieving and liked Pop and didn't want to see him get fired for it.

The rest of that paragraph is just the usual giving him the credit for the players success crap while unfairly ting on the bi-racial coach. No specific examples of what he supposedly did or the latter supposedly didn't.

I gave you specific examples of player development Pop was part of and you ignored it. And you're going to seriously tell me Rivers wasn't a huge underachiever with the Clippers?

[MultiTroll]

The shift starting in 2000 is jarring.

1995 was the year of high school direct to NBA began to substantially increase.

Not the beginning of high school to pros (Mo Malone, Bill Willoughby) but it seemed to really pick up after Garnett was a hit and then Kobme, etc.

Pretty sure that is huge contributor.

ic i think was somewhat genetically freaky and an exception.
FFS even with his multi millions he's one of the few to beat HIV.

[TD 21]

I gave you specific examples of player development Pop was part of and you ignored it. And you're going to seriously tell me Rivers wasn't a huge underachiever with the Clippers?

No, you didn't. You assigned credit to him that primarily belongs to those players. Specifics would have been something like, how did he supposedly turn Jackson into an elite defender?

The Clippers never had the best team and almost always had to deal with untimely injuries to Paul and/or Griffin (as did the Celtics with Garnett or Perkins). Their collapse against the Rockets was obviously an embarrassment for all involved, but the Spurs had a few of those in their time too.

[exstatic]

I just ran through the last 20 years in my head, and this is surprisingly accurate. Top picks have simply not translated to championships. However, I would gently push back and assert that the previous 20 years (1980-1999) have included several good examples, listed below. Note that this covers every championship in this era except for the 1983 76ers.

Michael Jordan (3rd, 1984) 6 les for Bulls
Scottie Pippen (5th, 1987) 6 les for Bulls
Hakeem Olajuwon (1st, 1984) 2 les for Rockets
Larry Bird (6th, 1978) 3 les for Celtics
Kevin McHale (3rd, 1980) 3 les for Celtics
Magic Johnson (1st, 1979) 5 les for Lakers
James Worthy (1st, 1982) 3 les for Lakers
Isiah Thomas (2nd, 1981) 2 les for Pistons
Tim Duncan (1st, 1997) 1 le in this referenced era, but 5 total les for Spurs
David Robinson (1st, 1987) 1 le in this referenced era, but 2 total les for Spurs

So, how much of the change is due to the inherent variability of small sample sizes, and how much due to trends such as the increased frequency of stars moving to big markets and/or super teams? When I started writing this post, I was leaning toward the former, but now after collecting the information I think it's the latter. The shift starting in 2000 is jarring.

It’s not small sample size. Most of those players in the earlier phase played at least two years of NCAA ball. Jordan played three. Bird played four. It’s not a coincidence that when they decided to roll the draft back to admit HS players, it went to . The One and Done failed to shove the genie back in the bottle.

[SpurPadre]

Much ado about nothing. Pop is coming back.

[Chinook]

I mean, a lot of MVPs don't win les, ever but more importantly in the year in which they win. Coaching definitely matters development matters. Just because a player has to work to improve doesn't mean that he doesn't need other guys to break down film, show him techniques, get his workout and diet routines right. Obviously, if that's true, then it's true that certain people would be better at doing those things then others. If that is true, then it means SA could employ some of those better individuals, and having those better individuals might've contributed to them developing players to a higher degree of success than their situation would project. Also, basketball isn't played on a spreadsheet, and the interpersonal aspects to coaching obviously matter. It might not've taken a genius to draft Duncan, but a tier coach might've lost him to Orlando. After all, Doc couldn't get Tim to come over -- who knows if in the universe where he replaced Pop if he would've lost him.

This isn't to say Pop doesn't have flaws that might make him moving on in the team's best interest. His lack of 3PA attempts was bad, but the horrible three-point defense was the real killer. You can't play a high-efficiency two-pointers game if you can't stop high-powered long-distance offenses. The 2017-2018 Spurs had the defenders to do that. This past version of the team didn't, and their scheme didn't help. I've given my criticism of Pop's offensive scheme too many times to do so again. So yeah, Pop is looking mighty replaceable now. But he was great at one time, and he definitely deserves his credit. That's not some white man's burden (like how it is in the NCAA), so there's no need to make it one. There's a reason why Spo is still doing his thing even though he has none of the three superstars that supposedly made him anymore.

[MultiTroll]

might've lost him to Orlando.

I thought the rumor / news leak that all it took to seal the deal was to let Duncans significant other ride on the team plane and he was signing.

[Allan Rowe vs Wade]

This place is going to be awesome once Pops is gone and the team strings together 3 or 4 60-loss seasons in a row

[J_Paco]

This place is going to be awesome once Pops is gone and the team strings together 3 or 4 60-loss seasons in a row

It'll be interesting how the histrionics and narrative will change once Pop is really gone.

It seems some people bitterly attribute (or think the media does) too much of the credit to Pop or believe that somehow matters to him. Even though he's time and time again pointed to HIS PLAYERS (mainly Duncan) as the reason the team was a success.

[NASpurs]

This place is going to be awesome once Pops is gone and the team strings together 3 or 4 60-loss seasons in a row

So we’re going to get better lotto picks instead of being a treadmill team drafting a bunch of role players? Sign me up!

[Allan Rowe vs Wade]

So we’re going to get better lotto picks instead of being a treadmill team drafting a bunch of role players? Sign me up!

unless pop stays on in a big riley-esque way, i'm not trusting ATFO to draft or develop players

hopefully i'm wrong

[JeffDuncan]

This place is going to be awesome once Pops is gone and the team strings together 3 or 4 60-loss seasons in a row

Yeah, everybody will be saying how pleased they are with the shape Pop left the team in.

[TD 21]

MVP's winning les isn't dependant on coaching, it's dependent on surrounding talent and a modi of luck (unless you have '03 Duncan, who somehow even rendered those irrelevant).

Coaching matters (namely player development), but coaches don't. If you want to give the Engelland's and Forcier's and more recently certain assistants who poured in extensive time with young players credit, fine.

Sure, some are better than others, but who evaluates and determines that? People just reverse engineer this stuff based on results.

"Spo" is still doing his thing because they lucked into Adebayo and are in a glamor market, which led to Butler. When he didn't have them, he was mired in mediocrity in the JV conference.

[timvp]

This place is going to be awesome once Pops is gone and the team strings together 3 or 4 60-loss seasons in a row

Hint: Pop will still be blamed long after he's gone for any non-championship season until the time comes at some point in the future that every last remaining tie to the Pop era is lost.

[ducks]

List the coaches pop had under him that have won it all

[bluebellmaniac]

Hint: Pop will still be blamed long after he's gone for any non-championship season until the time comes at some point in the future that every last remaining tie to the Pop era is lost.

And ... If by chance we should win a championship, it too shall be the fault of Pop for not having won more of them prior to that championship.

[bluebellmaniac]

So doesn't matter if we win or not, Pop-haters are gonna hate.

[spurraider21]

hopefully this allows pop to become a bigger political kingpin tbh

[Chinook]

MVP's winning les isn't dependant on coaching, it's dependent on surrounding talent and a modi of luck (unless you have '03 Duncan, who somehow even rendered those irrelevant).

More talented teams lose all the time. Scheme can certainly can flip a game and thus a series.

Coaching matters (namely player development), but coaches don't. If you want to give the Engelland's and Forcier's and more recently certain assistants who poured in extensive time with young players credit, fine.

Coaches coach. If coaching matters, then it stands to reason some coaches can be more effective than others. Surely a horrible coach who never adjusts or can't get his guys to follow a game plan (or who can't draw up a good game plan in the first place) can be worse than ones who do those things.

Sure, some are better than others, but who evaluates and determines that? People just reverse engineer this stuff based on results.

You're making it seem like looking at stats to determine things is somehow a flawed approach that's being used at coaching. We basically judge everything, especially in sports, by stats and narrative. It's not weird that the guys thought to be the best coaches are the ones who have the most success, especially over the course of a long time with different players. Other aspects are mostly subjective, and there's no point into devolving into a back-and-forth about that.

"Spo" is still doing his thing because they lucked into Adebayo and are in a glamor market, which led to Butler. When he didn't have them, he was mired in mediocrity in the JV conference.

No. Spo is still doing his thing because they developed quite a few players, Bam definitely being one of them. I know you tend to have a very deterministic way of looking at the NBA (and believe that things that happened had to happen and happen the way they did). But not all great players were always going to be great. Sometimes, having a coach that is willing to let a player grow and might be willing to force the player to try to expand his game is important. KAT's college coach didn't let him shoot threes. Kidd made Giannis a PG when his skills weren't even close to good enough to get there. Going from a player who basically showed no floor game in college and becoming a dribble-drive, play-making center in the NBA wasn't just an inevitable change. Spo and his staff deserve a ton of credit not just for Bam, but in getting a team full of low picks and rejects to be a legit playoff compe or. In many ways, Riley screwed with the Heat's roster way worse than anything the Spurs have had to deal with, and he traded a lot of potential young talent away in the process. The Heat should've been much worse than they were basically every year since the Bosh retirement.

[Kurgan]

2) It's not a coincidence that the "shot profile" suffered when the two players in the league who are the most addicted to mid-range jumpers and most resistant to change joined the team. The coaching staff has highlighted the need for threes but those two players refused to change. Virtually every other player beyond those two have trended the right way. In prior years, the Spurs had cutting edge shot profile. Spurs fans acting like the coaches would have Steph Curry shooting two-pointers

This sounds less like the players fault and more on how poor the team building has been from PATFO. if they didn't want an archaic offense, maybe they shouldn't have brought in the two most archaic "stars" in the NBA.

[Dejounte]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.exp...t-15985164.php

No way in he leapfrogs two assistant coaches (Becky, Will). Probably has a chance though if Pop stays one more year and he gets promoted on as an assistant coach.

[Dex]

Hint: Pop will still be blamed long after he's gone for any non-championship season until the time comes at some point in the future that every last remaining tie to the Pop era is lost.

He'll probably still be blamed after that, yoo....because of osmosis or some dumb like that.

[K...]

I don't think pop is obtuse and knows derozan is a double edge sword. I assume pop mulled trading him. I remember, supposedly the Murray white backcourt was supposed to be fast break heaven, but lma vetoed that. Then i think everyone became too dependent on derozan.

The next coach might have some successes, just from moving on from derozan. Of course that could also lead up bottoming out, but who cares. The path back is a journey, the years outside the lottery will be short. The spurs don't have any great reason to be better then average going forward.

The only real drama, is to we buildl like sacremento or Utah.