Pop's interview: "nothing should be rushed"

[Bruno]

Pop's situation is quite unique in the NBA: he is both Spurs' coach and president of Spurs basketball. This duality clearly appear in that interview where he sounds like a coach in some answers and like a head of the FO in other ones. He is also 75 years old which means that, unlike the majority of coaches, he isn't looking at getting another job after this one. He doesn't care with looking good.

FOs and coaches have sometimes opposite interest. For example, Monty Williams was forced to play Jaden Ivey by his FO.

When Pop is basically throwing away the first couple of month of the season by starting Sochan, Osman and Branham at PG, who is really behind that move Coach Pop or FO Pop?

[TD 21]

The big, scary, (half) black man, of course. He's unilaterally pulling the strings despite ranking below 1-2 (pending Buford's continued involvement) of the most pedigreed front office executives in league history in terms of decision making hierarchy.

It's all his fault, just like the Bucks not being able to defend at the point of attack or seemingly having chemistry issues is all newly minted Rivers' fault.

[objective]

When Pop is basically throwing away the first couple of month of the season by starting Sochan, Osman and Branham at PG, who is really behind that move Coach Pop or FO Pop?

Retirement Home Pop

Like with Splitter, like with that season be refused to play Murray and White together and capped them both at 24 minutes or less

[Spurminator]

Michael Jordan's Bulls made the Playoffs every year starting with his rookie season. They didn't tank his rookie year so they could surround him with higher draft picks and grow together. They climbed the mountain with a winning at ude and endured some heartbreaking Playoff losses on the road to becoming a Championship dynasty. That's how you build a winning culture and get the most potential out of an all-timer that fell into your lap.

Oh, and they fired their coach 3 times.

[Spurminator]

Pop's situation is quite unique in the NBA: he is both Spurs' coach and president of Spurs basketball. This duality clearly appear in that interview where he sounds like a coach in some answers and like a head of the FO in other ones. He is also 75 years old which means that, unlike the majority of coaches, he isn't looking at getting another job after this one. He doesn't care with looking good.

FOs and coaches have sometimes opposite interest. For example, Monty Williams was forced to play Jaden Ivey by his FO.

When Pop is basically throwing away the first couple of month of the season by starting Sochan, Osman and Branham at PG, who is really behind that move Coach Pop or FO Pop?

Pop just seems to view himself now as a "life coach" more than a basketball coach. He's building men. It's a noble cause, but he should coach at a high school if that's his priority.

[scott]

Pop's situation is quite unique in the NBA: he is both Spurs' coach and president of Spurs basketball. This duality clearly appear in that interview where he sounds like a coach in some answers and like a head of the FO in other ones. He is also 75 years old which means that, unlike the majority of coaches, he isn't looking at getting another job after this one. He doesn't care with looking good.

FOs and coaches have sometimes opposite interest. For example, Monty Williams was forced to play Jaden Ivey by his FO.

When Pop is basically throwing away the first couple of month of the season by starting Sochan, Osman and Branham at PG, who is really behind that move Coach Pop or FO Pop?

Pop's position creates a number of interesting dynamics like this one - for example he (President) is the boss of his (Coach) boss (GM). At the end of the day, however, this mostly just means that ultimate accountability falls on Pop (President), RC (CEO) and Jr (Managing Partner)

[scott]

Michael Jordan's Bulls made the Playoffs every year starting with his rookie season. They didn't tank his rookie year so they could surround him with higher draft picks and grow together. They climbed the mountain with a winning at ude and endured some heartbreaking Playoff losses on the road to becoming a Championship dynasty. That's how you build a winning culture and get the most potential out of an all-timer that fell into your lap.

Oh, and they fired their coach 3 times.

Likewise, the Spurs FO at the time put a winning team around rookie David Robinson which established the culture for the next 30 years. David, Sean, Tim, Tony, Manu, Kawhi all knew nothing other than a culture of winning, because that's what they were drafted into. The Victor Spurs don't have the same luxuries of being an instant-contender, but we are taking a very laissez-faire approach to this.

I hope the FO isn't as content with being losers as their statements appear to imply. The Spurs have missed the playoffs NINE times in the franchise's history... FIVE of them in the last five years. Yet, it's all just part of the process.... be patient. Definitely trust the guys who keep losing.

[baseline bum]

dp

Bend over, I'll show you dp

[exstatic]

Perfect illustration of Scott's post.

Be really bad (again) so you can get another underwhelming lottery pick with a role-player ceiling and teach them how to get used to losing? that. This year's draft is a crapshoot anyway.

How about next year? The ceiling is probably 9 or 10 seed. Should we try to win or should we tank again and try for another top 10 pick?

Then maybe in 2026 we'll have top-8 seed potential (which isn't a Championship level, so might as well tank for a lottery pick.)

The great teams have never operated this way. We're taking it on faith that a coach who has never built a Championship team from the bottom can do it, based on the model of another team that hasn't won a Championship with that model either.

OKC has operated EXACTLY this way, and posters here swoon over them.

We can’t operate like other teams do, because free agency is basically closed to us at the highest level.

[exstatic]

BS. Coach saw an opportunity to glorify himself even more by coaching the next great big man and took the money to stay because the FO was dumb enough to offer it


Cop out answer. "B-b-but MJ didn't win right away!" bro we're not asking to assemble a championship roster day one, we just want to see improvement. the entire team took a big ing step back this season, it's not unreasonable at all to expect a 22 win team to improve after drafting a player of Victor's caliber


OKC was complete trash for 2 years but some of that was obvious intentional tanking. They also traded for their current star. Spurs are already 5 years into sucking ass and have done jack other than trade for some picks from ATL and completely luck into winning the lottery. OKC was much more aggressive in trying to make moves so that when their star emerged, they had some talent around him. Spurs have not done exactly the same thing at all


basically admitting that Tim was the reason for all of the spurs success, which we already knew first honest answer thus far


more BS. we know the Spurs have been monitoring Victor for years now. i 100% do not believe Pop had never seen him play prior to this season. and wtf does not giving him a PG for half the season have to do with "observing" him? like what purpose did this serve? it doesnt take 30 ing games to realize he is best played at C with an actual PG. more excuses for trying to be too cute



"financial flexibility" but re-signs Collins to a terrible deal while undeservedly making Vassell the highest paid Spurs player in history for his 18ppg. give me a break

It’s a two year deal at like 1.5x MLE. Take a breath.

[Joseph Kony]

It’s a two year deal at like 1.5x MLE. Take a breath.

Doesn't make it any less terrible

[scott]

OKC has operated EXACTLY this way, and posters here swoon over them.

OKC missed the playoffs for two years, made the play-in in the third, and are now contending for the #1 seed.

The Spurs will miss the playoffs for the fifth straight year this season. Only the Hornets have a longer active playoff drought. We are most certainly the only team on a playoff drought streak who gave their Coach/Chief FO a record setting extension.

We aren't operating the way OKC did.

[exstatic]

Doesn't make it any less terrible

Actually, it does. A two year deal at 1.5 X MLE is nothing to get your panties in a wad about.

[Spurminator]

OKC has operated EXACTLY this way, and posters here swoon over them.

We can’t operate like other teams do, because free agency is basically closed to us at the highest level.

I was talking about OKC when I said "based on the model of another team that hasn't won a Championship with that model either."

I was not talking about OKC when I said "The great teams." OKC hasn't won .

[jeebus]

Nice to see Pop taking time to actually answer questions, and not just be snarky. I Wish he showed the media here the same respect.

The dip s working at SAEN don't deserve any respect. Especially that re ed cuck Jeff McDonald who would rather spend his nights debating obvious trolls than putting out a decent article.

[RC_Drunkford]

I heard some Spurs beat writers say that Manu said they had a 5-year plan for this team with Victor. That means we should be contenders by 2028. It's gon be a long ride

[poopbox]

And what moves do you think the Spurs should have made that will make them an instant contender in the next year or two?

I'll go ahead and throw out the Samanic and Primo picks as obvious wastes, but if it weren't for those we also probably wouldn't have Wemby right now.

Everyone likes to complain...until they are asked to offer solutions.

It's not about becoming an instant contender because that is not going to happen in todays basketball. Teams play to fast, shoot and make to many 3's for any rookie to come in and make a huge impact in winning.

It's about increasing the talent on the team, because the talent is pretty low right now. It's about making logical moves that make sense, for example pursuing a real starting point guard so our backup point guard can go be a back up and we can stop losing the non Tre minutes every game...cause we lose those minutes just like we lose the non Wemby minutes. It's about understanding you probably going to have to overpay either in salary to get a good veteran here, or overpay in what you offer to trade for a good player, two things the spurs have yet to show they understand. It's about being smart enough to know that when you DO get the franchise player, which we have, it's probably not wise to try and tank again after that, because that means in year 2 you got to be that much better than year 1. It's about understanding how star players move around in today's nba and how volatile they can be and the same guy who says he loves playing for the team can be the same guy demanding a trade a few months later.

What I got from Pop was "we are going to be patient cause we got all the time in the world and we are very excited about what Devin is doing." You actually DONT have all the time in the world and who exactly would even trade for Devin right now?

[timtonymanu]

Nope just expected him to learn how to play defense by now. You know on a fundamental level. Since Pop is teaching them fundamentals for 5 years. I thought I should see some results. But that’s just me apparently.

And yet the other #29 picks like Murray and white still became all star level players. I don’t think it’s a lot to ask that Keldon gets his fundamentals down. Especially if he’s been on the spurs this long.

[Seventyniner]

Comparing attempts to build a dynasty now versus early Jordan or Duncan eras is silly. Players are much younger when they come into the league and superstars almost never change teams in free agency anymore.

Would rookie Duncan have been good enough to drag this year's Spurs team into the playoffs? Perhaps. 19 year old Duncan? No way. Same with Jordan. The league is different now.

Looking more recently, it took Curry and Jokic 5 seasons just to make the playoffs and Giannis didn't win more than 44 games in a season until year 6. Did "cultures of losing" stop them from becoming superstars?

[Mugen]

[Mugen]

Pop's situation is quite unique in the NBA: he is both Spurs' coach and president of Spurs basketball. This duality clearly appear in that interview where he sounds like a coach in some answers and like a head of the FO in other ones. He is also 75 years old which means that, unlike the majority of coaches, he isn't looking at getting another job after this one. He doesn't care with looking good.

FOs and coaches have sometimes opposite interest. For example, Monty Williams was forced to play Jaden Ivey by his FO.

When Pop is basically throwing away the first couple of month of the season by starting Sochan, Osman and Branham at PG, who is really behind that move Coach Pop or FO Pop?

This has been very clear for the last 10 years tbh

[Spurminator]

The Spurs should be a Playoff team next year. That's not rushing anything, that's a necessary first step. "Fundamentals" can still be taught in that environment.

[exstatic]

OKC missed the playoffs for two years, made the play-in in the third, and are now contending for the #1 seed.

The Spurs will miss the playoffs for the fifth straight year this season. Only the Hornets have a longer active playoff drought. We are most certainly the only team on a playoff drought streak who gave their Coach/Chief FO a record setting extension.

We aren't operating the way OKC did.

We had a couple of play in teams where theirs were first round outs going nowhere, but it’s not substantially different. Both teams were on the treadmill. Let’s see how they stack up next year, if our 2 20is win seasons end with climbing into a play in spot, or better. A play in the third season after the hard tear down would be an OKC analog, IMHO.

[spurraider21]

The Spurs should be a Playoff team next year. That's not rushing anything, that's a necessary first step. "Fundamentals" can still be taught in that environment.

but that would lower our chance of winning the lottery. gotta be patient on acceleration. we gotta lag for flagg

and then 2026 we become a loozer for boozer

[Joseph Kony]

Actually, it does. A two year deal at 1.5 X MLE is nothing to get your panties in a wad about.

are you re ed or something? my panties arent in a wad over Collins deal. the only thing you could respond to my entire post was basically "cOlLiNs DeAl iSnT tHaT bAd" while ignoring the fact that POP is talking about maintaining financial flexibility which is obviously ing false because he signed a garbage man to an undeserved contract. it doesnt matter if its 1.5 x the MLE - that is still a terrible deal for Collins production. The goal is to build a contender around Wemby and saddling the team with guys on garbage deals like Collins isn't doing jack to improve flexibility. you sniffers really will just love huffing that PATFO copium and slobbering every single move they make. must be exhausting doing the mental gymnastics it takes to try and rationalize every decision. i bet you loved the Primo pick too.

so you think Vassell's underserved contract is a steal too then i assume? Yeah, he definitely deserved to be the highest paid player ever for his three seasons of leading us nowhere while posting middling scoring averages on middling efficiency and getting worse on D every season