What We Learned from the Spurs loss to the Wolves

After the game in New York on Wednesday, Gregg Popovich was shown by ESPN’s cameras going over to shake hands with Knick’s coach Tom Thibodeau. During the exchange, he can be seen smiling and saying, “It’s going to take some time.”

Uggggggggghhhhhhh.

It’s like he hasn’t even considered my feelings on the matter. What if I would like them to be good now? What if I would prefer that things didn’t take time? What if I watched one game against a Phoenix team (that clearly is going through some weird growing pains of it’s own) and decided to just throw all my carefully calculated expectations out the window and just lose my mind a little bit? Did Gregg think about any of that? Unacceptable.

So yea. Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more. Our season is probably going to be littered with little losing streaks like this. There’s going to be some blow outs. There’s going to be some blown leads. There’s going to be some nights where our boys are asked to deal with a 2-3 zone for a little bit and just completely forget how to shoot the basketball in the process. It’s okay. It happens. We’re going to be fine.

It’s frustrating, for sure, because you watch Victor Wembanyama out there on the floor doing some of the things he’s capable of doing and you just want to....I don’t know, do something crazy? It makes you wish the team had sent half our guys out to get Dame or put together draft picks for Beal or paid 20 cents on the dollar for Harden (lol, jk, not that. Never that). I don’t even remember what all was available last summer, but you keep hearing all these people saying the Spurs didn’t want to leverage their future for this season and, well, WHY NOT? LEVERAGE IT FOR THE NOW! I WANT TO WIN NOW!

This is categorically stupid. It’s galactically insane. I know this and I recognize this and I hope all of us feel it somewhere deep in our hearts as we’re watching the Spurs let another lead slip through their fingers. It’s easy to get impatient, but a beautiful twist of fate has handed us the opportunity to do something special here and it is so important that it’s done right. Do you think Cleveland is super satisfied with the one championship they won with LeBron? Remember that? How they had a generational superstar who grew up in their backyard and still only won one championship with them before leaving (again) for the Lakers? This can go wrong and it can end badly and it would emotionally devastating on a level I’m not totally prepared to think about right now.

So we’re not going to rush it. We’re going to build and we’re going to work and we’re going to “pound the rock”, as they say, and we’re going to get where we need to go. It’s not going to look like a finished product most nights and we’re just going to have be okay with it. It’s going to take some time.

It’ll be worth it.

Takeaways:

• I’m going to fight Bill Simmons in The Octagon. I know Spurs fans have their own little internal debate going on about the Point Sochan experience, but that’s our cross to bear because we have to watch and care about these nerds every day. Simmons parachuting into Spurs World here for the first time since 2017 and deciding to dedicate 5 minutes of every NBA pod he does to cry about how the Spurs are wasting Wembanyama’s career by not getting him a real Point Guard might drive me off a cliff. Frankly, it’s radicalized me fully into becoming a Point Sochan Guy. I’m all in. It is so blindingly obvious that they are betting on Jeremy becoming a vital cog in the Spurs machine down the road and that getting him point guard reps right now, in a season where the record doesn’t matter mind you, will pay huge dividends down the road. NO ONE THINKS JEREMY SOCHAN IS THE POINT GUARD OF THE FUTURE. Oh, did he have a couple of turnovers in a game that doesn’t materially matter in the grand scheme of things? Well then, yes, by all means, let’s blow everything up and go get T.J. McConnell.
• The worst part of all of this is that when Jeremy Sochan is the second coming of Draymond Green and anchoring the Spurs defense while being a jack of all trades on offense as the Spurs are charging their way to end the Denver Nuggets Mini-Dynasy in three years, he’s going to be on some pod with the RA of his old college dorm and say like, “You know what? I had my doubts about the Sochan thing early on, but he’s really good. I like what he brings to the table in this matchup” and there will just be no consequences whatsoever. Is getting upset about a Bill Simmons opinion in 2023 qualifying enough to put me in a home? I don’t know. Maybe I’m just out of practice with the national media paying attention to us again. I promise I’ll calm down a bit. Maybe.
• I like the In-Season Tournament. What if we gave it a chance to be fun? What if let it become something instead of immediately writing it off? I dunno, just a thought. It helps that we have, by far, the best of the full color courts. I’m absolutely in love with the Tower of Americas logo at center court and I think I might even be vibing with the Pastel Fiesta Color scheme more than Fiesta Original Recipe at the moment. At the very least, it’s a nice change of pace just to keep things interesting.
• All the courts are fun, I don’t know what else to say. Sorry if they would like, offend Red Auerbach or whatever, but they look cool. If I was 10 years old I would be PSYCHED anytime I was watching dudes play on the weird, blood red court in Chicago or the electric blue court in OKC. It’s fun and weird! The NBA could stand to be a little more fun and weird from time to time.
• Yes. Sure. Maybe the Spurs lost, but like....LOL

WWL Post Game Press Conference

- I’m not going to ask you about the Bill Simmons thing because I don’t want you to get fined or anything

- I appreciate that. I’m sure I’ll get a letter from the league office or something like that.

- I guess, instead I’ll just ask, are you really all in on the Sochan thing or is it a bit? Like, do you actually like watching it every night or do you just like having a different take?

- It’s not a bit. I think people in my position who pretend they know more about basketball things than Gregg Popovich are wrong more often than they’re right so I’m ready to go on the ride if he is. The benefits of it seem crystal clear to me and the downsides are, what? We aren’t going to challenge for the 9 seed this year? I can live with it. Giving up right now would be like going to the gym 8 times, not losing any weight, and then giving up on the entire concept of getting in shape.

- Is there anything you don’t like about the Point Sochan experience?

- Only that it wasn’t my idea in the first place and Pop doesn’t have me over to his wine cellar and to tell me stuff like, “You know, you really saved our butts with this idea. We we’re getting ready to trade for T. J. McConnell before you called us up and told us to give Sochan a try. Can you imagine? T.J. McConnell? That would’ve been a disaster. Only an idiot would think that would be a good idea.”

- Well now you’re definitely getting fined.

- Yea, probably.