I don’t think it damages his coaching legacy. If anything, it cements it. The lack of ego and passion for the game needed to look at the kids and say, you know what, I’m having as fun as any even if we don’t win much. Phil would never.

So yeah, I still trust in Pop. There’s a couple things you learn about the man - he’s worldly, relationship-based, and always sees the big picture. It’s always bigger than basketball, and winning is not the end-all-be-all of the team the same way big franchises like the Lakers do it where they can gut a whole roster to take a chance at winning.

However, just as the Spurs ain’t just about Tim before, the coaching ain’t just about Pop. It’s fair to say that the challenge might have been the brain drain. Assistant coaches become coaches someplace else and are thriving. Pop’s obviously happy about it, but that meant having to develop new coaching staff as well.

Pop is doing all of this in a small market btw.

With such a young team being so far from truly contending, doesn’t it make more sense to focus on teaching and growth rather than limping into the play in?

I mean i’m not sure what people expected with a team built around Demar and a still good but past his prime LMA. And later Dejounte

The one mistake Pop and the FO made is that we shouldn’t have had those guys on the roster in the first place. We should have tanked earlier after Kawhi asked out. Traded him for a similar haul to what OKC or Houston got for their stars. Though it obviously worked out with Wemby

Have his years post-Kawhi been up to his reputation as a coach?

• 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)

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?

• 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