The Press on Popovich: You Got Victor Wembanyama, Where are the Wins?

For as many years as Gregg Popovich has been in the NBA, he’s never felt anywhere near the amount of pressure he’s facing right now.

When he fired Bob Hill and took over as coach in 1996, there was heat, to be sure. But that heat was localized to South Texas newspapers and news stations.

It’s an entirely separate conversation when, in 2023, you land the greatest basketball prospect of all time — an international player no less — and you’re sitting in last place in your conference at a pathetic 8–36.

And this is all happening in the social media era: YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, etc.

Along with the sports betting era: Draftkings, FanDuel, Underdog Fantasy, Prize Picks, etc.

Everybody’s catching some or all of the highlights, scores, and/or box scores.

And everybody’s noticing the Spurs are losing. A lot.

The mainstream media has been extremely kind to the Spurs. ESPN and TNT broadcasts have skirted around the heavy losing with light coverage that starts with the “development” narrative and then quickly shifts to the bright future.

But the fringe coverage (the real coverage) is starting to bristle.

There are pockets of truth telling to be found on NBA TV.

Bill Simmons rips the Spurs on his podcast whenever the Spurs cross his radar.

And just eight days ago, Gilbert Arena’s YouTube show, Gil’s Arena, had a brief segment where Gregg Popovich’s performance in the last four years was really pressed against the grill.

Bomani Jones had two really good stretches early on including this one:

But here’s the thing, people talk about it like it’s slander. I’m just asking you, who else could have four straight years like this and never have to answer for ‘em?

And every year people make the same argument, well they just getting worse to get better. When they did that in Philadelphia we wasn’t tolerating it. We called it, you know we — and I and I definitely did it I was not here for none of that Sam Hinkie sh*t or what they were pulling.

Are they trying to be good? If they haven’t been trying to be good for four years, then somebody got an answer for that.

Exactly.

Bomani got it exactly right.

You’re either really, really bad or you’re tanking and, either way, it’s time to answer for it.

The bell tolls for thee, Gregg Popovich.

As I’ve written, the 5 championships store credit ran out weeks ago. You can swipe that gift card again, but it’s not going through.

Pop has lost his sacred cow status. In sports, you’re a sacred cow when you’re a winner.

Once you’ve lost the magic touch, it’s only a matter of time before you’re kicked to the curb. At that point, you better have saved your money or you’ll be signing autographs at a collectibles show in a few months.

But going back to Bomani’s question, again, what’s the answer?

Because I too don’t want to hear your tale of tank.

You won the lottery. You got Victor. Where are the wins?

I searched for Pop’s Thunder post-game press conference to hear him talk about the new completely made up minutes restriction for Victor (it’s 30 minutes — I found it in the pre-game video), but I got more than I bargained for as Pop went out of his way to add information that supports his “development” path.

Here are two revealing quotes from the video posted on Spurs.com:

Reporter: What do you think of the job they’re doing building in Oklahoma City?

Pop: Well, I mean, Sammy’s been fantastic, but, it takes a while to get there. They’ve had a lot of good picks over a good number of years to get where they are now and it’s starting to show its benefits.

So they’re doing a great job. Coach has done a great job. They’ve stayed the course, been patient, added people every year and now they have a chance to do something special. So they’ve done a wonderful job.

Look at some of the key phrases Pop uses here:

• It takes a while to get there.
• They’ve had a lot of good picks over a good number of years.
• They’ve stayed the course, been patient, added people every year.

These aren’t the words of a guy who’s ready to start winning. I have more thoughts, but let’s run through the next quote first.

Second Reporter: Do you feel like what you guys are doing with the Spurs has some similarities to what OKC did over the last two years?

Pop: Sure, yeah, exactly the same. *There’s a pause and then Pop adds more* It’s been a good number of years to get where they are right now and that’s what, that’s what it’s a cycle of things. We were in that position for three decades and now we’re starting over and so we’ll have to have the same patience and make good decisions in the draft and that kind of thing. But we don’t want to skip any steps. We want to just do it the right way and, have the people here that we want.

Key phrases in part II:

• It’s been a good number of years to get where they are right now
• Now we’re starting over and so we’ll have to have the same patience
• We’ll have to… make good decisions in the draft.
• But we don’t want to skip any steps.

One important note is that Pop chose to add the entire part after the first sentence after a pause in the back and forth.

Here we see more of the same talk. Pop is laying out expectations for the Spurs by way of talking about what he views as the Thunder’s path to success.

We see “patience” and “a good number of years” carried over from the first quote.

This is concerning for anyone who wants to see the Spurs push to be competitive and in the playoffs.

Another angle to consider with these answers is that Pop’s even stressing patience to begin with. Why would he be emphasizing patience and that Thunder-level success is a good number of years off unless he was feeling pressure?

And where is the pressure coming from?

Victor is certainly a possibility because he can’t start winning soon enough.

But I don’t think Pop’s infusion of patience preaching into this pre-game press conference is because of Victor. I think there are other relevant figures close to the team that prompted him to make these statements.

It’s good he’s feeling pressure, but his response is bad — it’s defensive and it doubles down on the Spurs “development” path.

He could just be saying a championship is years away but given how he’s operated this year, he could also be saying, the tanking doesn’t stop at the end of this year.

The Spurs need a coach who not only feels the fire, but responds to it.

I’m not advocating for the Spurs to hastily make a trade or free agent signing. My stance is and has been that they need to stop tanking and try to win games with the roster they have and then build on top of that success.

With less than 40 games left in the season, the Spurs need to play a lot closer to .500 ball and lose their prized hold on the third worst record to release some of the pressure that’s building.

People are done with the tanking. Victor has arrived and lived up to all of the hype, it’s time for the Spurs to start winning.

A lot of eyes are on Gregg Popovich.