I brought this quote over from the doom thread also it wouldn’t go off topic. Sooo is Pop that great of a coach or was it right place, right time and personal? My personal opinion is he’s overrated. The Olympic teams play overall was a disappointment. KD saved his bacon on more than a few occasions. Sure the US was missing a few of the super nova players but it wasn’t like the team was full of scrubs. Some of the international teams were missing players also. I think Duncan was the voice of the team more than Pop. You don’t have to be a loud voice, you can lead by example. It was a really big deal for his top 3 guys to have the continuity that they had for all those years. People underestimate how important that is. Plug and play is a lot easier when the core doesn’t change. The time period after Timmy has not been gangbusters. I would consider the Kawhi situation a failure, along with Aldridge and DeRozan. I’m not sure Pop is the right coach for what is now a players league. If he can find that low key, low maintenance superstar it could be a match. Otherwise the guy should retire.
i think he's a good coach. he gets a lot out of players, but like carlisle, he can also grate on them. and you're right, the mindset of most superstars doesn't work with pop, and that's part of why the kawhi situation blew up (the other part being kawhi's kinda nuts i think). one could argue that other coaches might not have been as successful even with duncan/parker/ginobili, too, so there's that. we can't know. i just think duncan was so much more important than basically all the other variables. no fuss, right play all the time, team-first, ultra talented, played both ends, never a problem on or off the court, and just seems like a smart, genuine dude. so rare. dirk was like that. curry's like that. can you even name another? would any coach succeed with those guys? probably. would they succeed to the same degree? i'm not sure. and i think pop's kept SA more competitive than they should be given their roster of late, but yeah, he's probably done.
Giannis is another no fuss player I think but they are few and far between. I think Pop is good coach but I think he is thought of as an all time great and for me he doesn’t make that cut. Of course not a lot of coaches do.
I think that's unfair to Pop. You need to look at the roster potential and see what the coach does. Kawhi was the only superstar he had and they went to the WCF Finals in 2017(?). Continuously got to the Playoffs until Kawhi left. Aldridge was far from his best in SA and DeRozan is not enough in a tough West, but they have always remained competitive. That's the coach job They also operate in a small market and they never had a Jordan, Shaq, Kobe, Lebron or whoever was running and dominating the league. But they made the best out of 3 underrated players who probably would not be as successful if they hadn't played in SA with Pop and that group.
I’m not sure that Timmy and company wouldn’t have been successful under another coach. I think you are selling them short. They did have another star in Kawhi and that didn’t end well. How much of that was on SA and how much was on Kawhi is hard to know. I don’t like Kawhi because I think he strung us along but I could have seen him as a SA lifer before everything blew up. At least some of that blame belongs on Pop. Coaching is more than X’s and O’s It’s about managing players also.
I'm convinced that Duncan made Pop more than Pop made Duncan. Pop is a good coach, but he's not the genius savant some have claimed.
Harden not happy with how (old) new foul rules are being enforced with him. Claims they're foully profiling him. https://www.yahoo.com/sports/james-harden-sounds-off-nba-134213883.html
he's half right in that the league did this to themselves: all they had to do was call it correctly from the beginning, and we wouldn't be here. harden is correct that the same plays that got him FTs aren't now, what he's wrong about is that the current officiating is the one that isn't in accordance with the rules. anyway, i again doubt it continues or that harden won't get some calls when he needs them most. but i also feel pretty vindicated that he looks like he does when he doesn't shoot 12FTS a game. countless people over the years told me he'd be just as effective without those. NOPE. it affects his entire game.
look at what cleveland's running right now. they're starting a pf and two centers, plus two small guards. their bench is kevin love (who's been surprisingly useful i think) and rubio. anyway, they're 3-2 and beat the clippers last night. i think we have them next. yikes. get ready for rubio going 6-6 from three against us like he always does... anyway, weird thing they've got going over there...
Cavs are strangely constructed and looks to be working right now. Have to have size when your guards are that small. I wonder when Love gets out of there. A Beard poll and highlight I saw...
imagine you're accustomed to getting that call--how confident are you? how much easier does it make the rest of the game?
Plus, it's not just the number of FTs, or his confidence. It's also how defenders had to play him so delicately for fear that he was going to get his usual BS calls if they were even in his vicinity.
As much as I HATE his game, I have to admit I didn't expect him to be this bad without the BS calls. Makes me wonder how Sentient Meat is doing these days, wasn't he (among other things) a huge Harden fan and comparing him to the great visionaries from the past?
Its funny because Trae Young isn’t struggling with the rule change and he got so much flak last season for foul baiting.
yeah, sentient was pleasant enough, but just so wrong about everything all the time. right. it's huge for several reasons. defenders can start playing him more aggressively if the refs actually stick to their guns. feel like i'm jinxing it by gloating, but i'm sorry--it's been long several years of being shouted down about harden's game. i was right, dammit.
his early advanced stats are in the gutter, but his other stats (aside from FTAs) look basically the same. similar to doncic. i expect that the advanced stuff is just early noise, but both were made the poster boys when we all know harden was the primary culprit.
