Hi there, Knicks fan here. I’m just wondering how Pop has been in the years since the big 3 and Kawhi have no longer been on the squad. Pop is obviously regarded as one of the greatest coaches in basketball history, but is unique as so much of his greatness coincided with an equally great roster, committed to the concept of teamwork and maintaining a certain standard over a very long period of time for basketball. Have his years post-Kawhi been up to his reputation as a coach? Have the recent struggles been in any due to his effectiveness as coach without a Hall of Fame roster? Or has the youth and rebuilding mindset of the franchise shadowed his still excellent coaching?
I don’t mean to insinuate anything about his capabilities, I am just curious what the Spurs fanbase thinks of him as he nears his twilight years.
1·1 year ago- In the 5 seasons since he’s been gone, i would say so. He could’ve retired, and called it a career. But he stuck around and made the most of the players he had. You can only do so much, with the talent you have. If players can’t execute your plan, you can be the greatest coach ever and still fall flat. In the first 3 of the 5 years since his departure, those Spurs teams were stuck in the middle of the pack. They weren’t attracting any talent in the open market, and those teams really had no business making the Play-In but somehow made it in. He opened up DeRozan’s game and made him a facilitator, instead of just a scorer, and was big in developing some of the young talent in the time (Dejounte Murray, Derrick White, Keldon Johnson)
- You’re making it seem as if that Hall of Fame roster was built overnight, and those players never had to develop. What makes the Spurs great is their player development. They will make the most of every players capabilities, and move them if they find someone more suited to what they’re trying to do. People get so blinded by the winning, they forget the Spurs had to start somewhere; you just happen to get there faster with great players. Despite the Spurs drafting Wemby, they’re still rebuilding. Albeit, they have something to build around, they still need to figure out a lot. Without being on the bench with them, the most accurate litmus test we can have as spectators is to have a retrospective at the end of the season to assess where the Spurs were at the beginning of the season, and how they’re looking after 82. Again, you can have the greatest coach ever; but you still need players to perform and execute. This is a very young team, and it’s going to take them time to learn through reps