Spurs Mid-Season Report Card: Popovich ‘Development’ Means Losing a Lot
As the season has worn on, I’ve adopted a bottom-up blame hierarchy.
Initially, I thought it was Victor’s teammates fault. They were freezing out the basketball prodigy and playing horrible.
But then the blame moved to Pop. Why wasn’t he telling the team to pass to Victor? Why was he starting a power forward at point guard?
And now I blame Spurs ownership. Clearly Pop is ruining Victor’s rookie season. He’s not only creating a losing culture, but he refuses to let Wemby play real minutes — and he’s sitting the youngest Spur out for “rest” games.
At the mid-way mark, the Spurs organization has performed horribly despite having landed the prize of all prized lottery picks.
From Jeremy Sochan and Keldon Johnson brazenly ignoring Victor on the court, to Pop not playing a healthy Victor Wembanyama, to Spurs management not putting an immediate stop to Pop’s out of control behavior, this season has been a garbage fire graced by the presence of Victor Wembanyama.
Grade: F-
Were this an imaginary national TV broadcast, we might have a broadcaster get in some extra work on the pummel horse of the mind.
He or she could start paving a slab to smooth over the Spurs 7–34 (.171) record.
Maybe we imagine it’s Doris Burke and she tells us how excited Pop is to coach this young team, but they are very young and there will be a learning curve as they figure out how to work together.
Maybe Doris also mentions the various injuries the Spurs have had to deal with — from Victor’s ankle to Zach Collins being out nine games to losing Charles Bassey for the season.
The emphasis wouldn’t be so much on the current woes but on the very bright future.
But this isn’t an ESPN broadcast so we’ll deal in the currency of truth rather than flowery pedals.
The truth is Pop’s either a horrific basketball coach or he’s purposefully losing games. It may be both, it’s likely one or the other, but it can’t be neither.
“Development”
There’s been a lot of development talk coming from the Spurs; it’s been the season long narrative surrounding the team. In fact, here’s Sean Elliott talking about development on The Dan Patrick Show, on June 26, just after the Spurs drafted Victor (timestamped at 4:50).
Dan asks: We’re going to have expectations, you’re going to have expectations. You’re going to go okay what can we expect from him so what is what is fair to him to expect this rookie season individually and team-wise?
Sean replies: Well, I think you’re asking me, and you’re asking the Spurs organization. You know, I’ve talked to Pop about it a little bit, and it’s just, you know, our expectations are realistic. I think fans’ expectations are always unrealistic; the media’s expectations are, you know, they’re way out of whack.
He’s 19 years old, he’s going to have to have an adjustment to the NBA. It’s not going to be easy. He understands that, and so for me, I’m thinking, you know, we’re going to be a much better team obviously because of him. He’s going to make everybody else better.
I don’t know how that’s going to translate into wins, but right now, if you ask Pop, he’ll tell you the same thing. It’s not about the wins and losses; it’s about developing and getting better and getting a foundation for his NBA career. So, I’m looking at this team. I think we’re gonna, yes, I think we’re gonna win more games, obviously. I think we’re going to win a lot more games, but I can’t talk about playoffs or anything like that because, you know, there are so many variables that go into the season.
Yes, development is going to be a theme when integrating a 19 year historical talent on a new team. Obviously, he needs to become familiar with his new teammates, NBA play, etc.
The problem isn’t the literal development of Victor and the young Spurs overall.
I want to direct your attention to two excerpts from Sean’s reply:
I’m thinking, you know, we’re going to be a much better team obviously because of him.
I think we’re gonna, yes, I think we’re gonna win more games, obviously. I think we’re going to win a lot more games,
So while Sean espouses the development mantra, he was clearly divergent on what development meant.
Because there’s development *shake head no and frown* and then there’s development *shake head yes and smile*.
And Pop’s idea of development meant not playing Victor and losing.
At the midway mark of the season, the Spurs are 7–34 which means they are on pace for 14 wins.
They won 22 games without Victor last season.
So how does one reconcile what’s happening in Victor’s rookie season?
You can try the national TV “young team” excuse but it doesn’t pass the common sense test.
How could adding Victor Wembanyama to any team make that team markedly worse?
Minutes Restriction
Well, you say, Victor hasn’t really played a full season because the Spurs are being cautious with him.
This is true. Victor has missed 6 of the 41 games and only averages 28.5 minutes per game when he does play.
As I write this, Victor is still on a minutes restriction of loosely 24–25 minutes per game.
But this is all the Spurs doing and there’s no basis in medicine for it.
Here’s the most famous sports doctor in the world outright denying the medical validity of this “cautious” approach and mocking it.
My point with the minutes restriction and sitting out back-to-backs is this was all self-induced. The Spurs (Pop) used Victor’s momentary ankle injury as an excuse to keep their best player off the floor, thus increasing their likelihood of losing while frustrating their franchise player in multiple ways.
This is not only bad form, it’s self-sabotage.
Tanking
Which leads to the ultimate conclusion: Pop isn’t a horrible coach per se, he’s just a coach who’s tanking again.
Here’s Richard Jefferson saying the quiet part out loud on ESPN:
I’ve written multiple articles on the Spurs tanking this season. Here they are:
Pop is Either Tanking or Really Bad
What Happens When Everybody Knows You’re Tanking
Pop’s Stance on Tanking Has a Catch
My suspicion is that Brett Brown brought “the process” over from Philadelphia and nudged Pop to implement the brilliant-genius mastermind plan to lose as many games as possible (but you can still win some, just not enough to lower lottery odds).
And you don’t just do it once, you do it twice.
While I will defend the Spurs rebuild strategy of trading away good players (Jakob Poetl, Derrick White, and DeJounte Murray) to reset and get away from ultimately becoming a perrennial play-in team, what the Spurs doing this year is embarrassing.
Victor Wembanyama didn’t walk into a team ready to leverage and build upon his other worldly talent, he walked into a team ready to throw themselves back into the ditch and get government assistance one more time.
To do so, they’ve used tactics like playing Jeremy Sochan at point guard, limiting Victor’s minutes, and not utilizing Victor when he’s on the floor.
Tanking should have never been allowed.
Once it was clear Pop was tanking (Richard Jefferson announcing it on ESPN was as good of cue as any), Holt Cat Family and Sixth Street Partners needed to step up and give Pop marching orders to coach like his job depended on it or resign.
Judging by the Spurs registering only 5 wins in their first 35 games, I’m guessing that didn’t happen.
Conclusion
Outside of Victor Wembanyama’s supernova arrival onto the NBA scene, the Spurs have failed in all facets of the game.
Victor’s teammates are just recently starting to recognize they have the most dominant basketball player in the universe on their team.
Victor’s coach hasn’t played him more than 30 minutes since December 17 (33 days ago).
And we don’t know if Spurs ownership even exists outside of what’s listed on paper. That’s not necessarily a bad thing unless the organization is continuously losing and potentially damaging the relationship with the most valuable basketball player in the world.
So, yes, the minus was necessary.
