this is a great piece for sure. i would whole-heartedly agree about Pop’s restlessness with this bunch – and the bit about not being able to win no matter how the team was organized in the dallas series. he never settled and he could never find a formula to get the team better without manu. some of our guys flat STUNK in the dallas series, and i’m not blaming all that on the coach.

i went into the dallas series firmly believing that the spurs would win it. what i did learn from that series is that rick carlisle is a pretty good coach – and that i had better go ahead and get off the “avery johnson is the next spurs coach” bandwagon that i had previously been riding.

avery got them to D up and play hard for a while, but his sytyle wasn’t going to last. carlisle was able to control the team, make several adjustments that worked and got them to make runs at critical times. and so far, he knows how to get what he wants/needs from cuban.

carlisle has been good everywhere he’s been and it could be bad news for us if he sticks in dallas long term. but enough about that……

my overall assessment of pop is this: i’ll admit that he is a goof/bad coach/lost his fastball/whatever when someone can name three coaches better than him.

pop deserved a big, heaping mound of credit for the job he did this year if you ask me. he basically cobbled together another typical spurs record in a year when injuries took their toll and the roster of veterans got really old right before our eyes…even old enough for me to admit that they are old.

the team rarely played that “spurs basketball” we know and love, yet they still managed a great record and a high playoff seed. better than we thought without much manu – and several games without tony and tim, that’s for sure.

We have been slightly spoiled in our expectations. Lets look at our division and what each accomplished this year:
Memphis: No playoffs
Dallas: Second round exit
Houston: Second round exit
New Orleans: First round exit
SA: First round exit but division title in the only division to send 4 teams to the playoffs

We finished tied for second in the West with a team we rested everyone against and still almost beat. To us that second place was with the caveat of “Pop only cares about the playoffs and getting there, seeds are irrelevant to our team”. To the team we were tied with, “We just tied our franchise win record because we got a leader with guys who suck at team basketball.” We were very injured and old this year and we still almost “shook the pillars of Heaven, Wang”.

An overview of our season with emphasis on losses:

1st 20 games, average loss by 10.5 pts on 8 losses (.57 SOS, losses only)
2nd 20, 14 pts on 6 (.59 SOS)
3rd, 9 pts on 7 (.62 SOS) .705 without Toronto and New York losses
4th, 6.4 pts on 8. (.60 SOS) .709 without OKC losses

If you don’t count the two oklahoma city and toronto/new york losses into the strength of schedules (because those teams all suck and must have cheated and the losses are inexcusable) then our losses were to better teams later in the year and we lost by less pts on average. One problem with being good is that the league stacks your back half schedule when the NFL goes away and advertising the playoffs needs to start. The Spurs are old so the regular season should be tougher for them at the end and the league adds to that with tougher teams.

In the regular season we lost 28 games.
-6 losses to nonplayoff teams (4 teams because Milwaukee swept us and OKC cheats)…In general, I think Pop holds back or sticks to rotations against playoff teams better than other coaches. For teams playing us, its a big game; but for us, its Thursday.
-7 losses to teams under .500 (previous six plus detroid (like detroit but not really)) 3 at home
-6 losses on segababa’s, 4 on figababa’s
-19 losses without Manu, 4 without Parker, 2 without Duncan, 2 without Bruce, 8 with Hill playing less than 10 minutes….and then there are the games where Duncan, Parker and Manu played hurt
-10 of our first 14 losses were by double digits vs. 4 of the last 14 losses (Cleveland and Portland each twice) No Duncan or Manu in the first Cleveland game. No Manu in either Portland.
-in the first 14 losses we had 3 games shooting over 50% and 8 shooting under 40%
-in the second 14 losses we had 1 game over 50% and 1 under 40% (@ Cle 39.2%)

So after the Rodeo Road Trip Denver game where we benched the team on a SEGABABA and lost by 8 on a -23 FTA margin.
1. @ Toronto on SEGABABA by 2
2. @ NY by 5 in OT (you could argue 0) without Manu
3. Clevleand by 11 with no Duncan or Manu….but with Pops (limited minutes)
4. @ Portland by 18 without Manu on a FIGABABA with a -17 FTA margin
5. @ Dallas by 5 without Manu and Hill gets 9 minutes
6. LA by 7 without Manu
7. @ OKC by 2 without Manu
8. Boston by 3 without Manu
9. Houston by 2 without Manu and Hill gets 7 minutes
10. @ New Orleans by 4 without Bowen and Hill gets 5 minutes and a -12 FTA margin
11. OKC by 1 without Bowen or Hill
12. @ CLE by 20 with Hill getting 6 minutes
13. Portland by 12 on SEGABABA without Manu and Hill getting 8 minutes???

That is 9 of our last 13 losses by 7 points or less with 6 losses by a single possession or OT. Most games lost by 5-7 pts were also put to that margin by having to foul at the end.

All of this improvement with an absent or hurt Manu, integrating Gooden, Bonner going MIA, Hill being held hostage, and Duncan having serious minute issues. So Pop did a pretty good job in my eyes. Now, FO Pop needs to get rid of the dead weight (Bonner….) and add a single player or two who won’t go MIA in the playoffs and keep Manu and Tim healthy and we are/will be an amazingly great team. Pop is better than me and better than you and better than his peers so you can’t fault him too much for a stupid move like messing up with Hill’s minutes. Even then, he may know something we don’t. Maybe PMB even tried to knife fight Duncan in practice or something.