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San Antonio Spurs 2024-25 - Taking it in the pooper for Cooper


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Posted
5 minutes ago, BurdineBandit said:

And let him pick who he wants to run it. 

He already did. We'll see how it goes. Thought Mitch grew into the season a bit but we'll see what he does with a full roster to open the season. 

Posted
25 minutes ago, ztejas said:

He already did. We'll see how it goes. Thought Mitch grew into the season a bit but we'll see what he does with a full roster to open the season. 

In that case, we're good. I'm not going to pretend to know more about running a basketball team than Pop. The breaking-in period doesn't last forever, but Mitch deserves a couple seasons to build the team, forge them into a unit, and let Wemby and Castle (and Sochan and Flagg) develop. 

Posted (edited)
7 minutes ago, BurdineBandit said:

In that case, we're good. I'm not going to pretend to know more about running a basketball team than Pop. The breaking-in period doesn't last forever, but Mitch deserves a couple seasons to build the team, forge them into a unit, and let Wemby and Castle (and Sochan and Flagg) develop. 

I'm not sure there's really a clear upgrade out there anyway. I'll pass on Malone and Jenkins. Donovan could maybe be good? Bud has Pop-ties but is older and hasn't been good in awhile. 

Unless it's Lue or Spo I'd just kick the tires on Mitch and let these guys mesh for another season. 

I would guess - though - that Bud takes some time off and Pop has him on the backburner in case Mitch is a total disaster. I think that makes the most sense. 

Edited by ztejas
Posted

I mean, it’s hard to tell how good he is as a coach without his best player. He’ll have a full off-season and year to get his assistants and his vision for the team in place. I’d prefer someone more seasoned, but lots of great coaches come from humble beginnings. Keep him on a short leash if the season goes to shit but give him everything you can for him to succeed. Dude is going to have some serious tools at his disposal. There’s no way they do this without Vic’s explicit approval.

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Posted
14 minutes ago, Kermit said:

I mean, it’s hard to tell how good he is as a coach without his best player. He’ll have a full off-season and year to get his assistants and his vision for the team in place. I’d prefer someone more seasoned, but lots of great coaches come from humble beginnings. Keep him on a short leash if the season goes to shit but give him everything you can for him to succeed. Dude is going to have some serious tools at his disposal. There’s no way they do this without Vic’s explicit approval.

This hire basically wasting Wemby.

Posted

If he’s bad they will fire him. No biggie. Maybe he turns out to be like Spoelstra? I like it better than trotting out one of the retreads like Bud. Honestly, Will Hardy would have been my choice but he’s already got a gig. Other than him? Give Mitch a shot, get another veteran coach on the bench who specializes in defense and let’s see what he can do. 

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Posted

Damn. I'm going to go watch some highlights.

Still remember exactly where I was, just out of college, back when Avery hit the jump shot to seal it against the Knicks. Never thought I'd see them win it all.

And I never would have dreamed they'd win 4 more titles and become the standard of NBA and sporting excellence and professionalism for over two decades.

Great fucking work Pop.

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Posted
4 hours ago, C-Man said:

I knew this day was coming sooner than later. It's still hard. IMO, Pop is the greatest NBA coach/executive of all time. (Spare me the Red Auerbach/Phil Jackson talk today.)

I'm sure I've told this story before. (But I'm gonna tell it again.) It's 1996 and I'm fresh out of UT and working for free as a sports intern at KMOL. I was earning some walkaround money covering HS sports for the Express-News. TV was my main gig and what I thought I wanted to do, though. As the intern, I got to cover all kinds of stuff that came through town -- the Alamo Bowl, and Oscar De La Hoya fight, etc. But the Spurs were the main thing in town, for good reason.

As the only major pro sport in town, we covered them on a daily basis once training camp got going. With Pete Delgado and Don Harris back at the studio, I was the person they sent out to practices, shoot-arounds and all the home games with a videographer to get soundbites, run tapes at the Alamodome, etc. The 96-97 Spurs were fresh off a second-round loss to the Jazz and Bob Hill was back for Year 3 as HC. The Spurs were two seasons past having the best record in the NBA and a crushing loss to Houston in the WCF.

Franchise player David Robinson was coming off summer back surgery (or something). He would miss the first 18 games of the season and the Spurs stumbled to a 3-15 start. Oddly enough, just as Robinson is about to start playing again, Pop fires Hill and names himself head coach. How convenient. I couldn't believe it. I *think* this was his first year back in SA as the GM and he'd never been a HC anywhere that mattered. And he seemed like an asshole.

But Robinson is back and the Spurs could maybe win enough to sneak into the playoffs as the lower seed that nobody wanted to play. Well, it didn't quite go as planned. The Spurs were 3-3 in six games and then stunningly we learn that David is out long-term. To this day, I'm not sure if he was healthy enough to have come back near the end of the season but at that point, losses mattered more than wins. And the Spurs were doing plenty of the former. They cycled through players like Jamie Feick and Jason Sasser.

As you can imagine, interest quickly waned. It wasn't long before the only reporters at practice or gameday shootaround were myself and the SAEN beat writer (can't remember if it was Jerry Briggs still or if he was on the national NBA beat; it might've been Tim Griffin). That was it. Let's fast forward to the night of March 14. The putrid Celtics are in town. Avery Johnson is out of the lineup because he's having his tonsils removed or something. Second-year PG Cory Alexander gets the start, plays 47 mins, makes five 3's, scores 22 points and dishes out 10 assists. The Spurs win and "boost" their record to 16-47. (The Celtics finished with the worst record in the league and had the most balls in the lottery hopper. Ask Rick Pitino how that turned out.)

All I need for the news that night is a nice quote about Cory's game from Pop. We assemble in the post-game press room and I'm sitting on the first or second row. It's me, maybe the guy from the AP and Briggs or whoever from the EN. Oh, there's some videographers at the back of the room who will shout out a question if necessary.

I can't remember if I got the first or second question.

ME (with a smile creeping across my face): "So, uh, does Avery need to worry about his starting job when he's ready to come back?"

Hey Pop, just smile, maybe laugh, and give me a Cory blowjob quote that we can run with 20 seconds of highlights on the 10 pm sportscast.

Didn't happen. He thinks for a second and looks at me like I told him to go fuck himself.

POP: "Who are you? You're with who? Why are you here?"

Or something like that. It's hard to remember exactly. I was mortified. My face went flush.

Somebody mercifully asked another question. Unbowed, I fired off another question before we wrapped things up. I wanted to show him I wasn't intimidated. (I was.)

As I made my way to the room where we'd send the tape back to the station, KENS weekend sports anchor Chuck Mikitinic runs me down. He tells me he's appalled that Pop treated me like that. Said it was completely uncalled for and very unprofessional. Whatever. He's an asshole, I thought and I didn't think he was long for the franchise at that point. We made it through the year without incident and the Spurs kept losing. And losing. And losing.

But I noticed a funny thing. The team competed. Every night. They were talent deficient for sure. But damn if they didn't play hard.

I moved over to print journalism full time that summer and remained there until leaving the business In 2006. I left SA a year later for DFW and have not spoken to Pop since the end of that 20-62 season. A few times I was helping out with the Mavericks' playoff coverage but a Spurs-Mavs matchup never materialized before I left the business. I so wanted to pull Pop aside and ask if he remembered that March night at the Alamodome. (BTW, I'm pretty sure I was one of the first -- if not the first -- to get Pop's legendary "sideline reporter" treatment.) I didn't want to make him feel bad. I hoped we could share a laugh about it and I would (off the record) thank him for fulfilling my childhood dream of seeing the Spurs win the championship. I'd still like to see him in person again. I think the story would be far funnier to him today than it would've been in 2003 or so. Or maybe he'd ask me what I was doing there.

Today is a bittersweet day to say the least. Pop is the Spurs as far as I'm concerned and they will always be my favorite professional sports franchise. It's Texas Football and Spurs basketball. Those are 1A and 1B and they're pretty much interchangeable. And that cantankerous motherfucker made the Spurs the envy of American professional sports.

Thanks Pop. For everything.

Um. He was an asshole. 😂

But he was honest and good at what he did. Trying to remember when he started softening up - probably around or after the '14 title. 

Posted
4 hours ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

If he’s bad they will fire him. No biggie. Maybe he turns out to be like Spoelstra? I like it better than trotting out one of the retreads like Bud. Honestly, Will Hardy would have been my choice but he’s already got a gig. Other than him? Give Mitch a shot, get another veteran coach on the bench who specializes in defense and let’s see what he can do. 

I feel like Mitch got better towards the end of the season. I'm fine giving him a year with a full off season to prepare and a full year (hopefully) of a healthy Wemby, Fox, and Castle. I think Wemby was definitely consulted about the coaching decision, and Pop has confidence in Mitch. We'll see how it goes.

Posted

I have no idea if the guy can coach or not, but I don’t mind the hire. 
 

on that Beautiful Game video posted above….certain seasons just stand out in sports and that was probably my favorite of any of them. The 2005 Longhorns are up there. The 1992 Cowboys are up there. I first went to a Spurs game somewhere around 1976. I watched them get so close so many times only to choke I really didn’t think it would ever happen. But then the stars aligned and everything came together for one of the greatest runs a franchise has ever had. You have to have great players which is an obvious understatement. But you have to have a defining culture to do it for so long and nobody did it better than Pop.

i met him on one occasion. I worked for HEB at their corporate office downtown as a young kid out of high school. Me and a work buddy got VIP tickets to a game that included a pregame meal and QA session with Larry Brown. Well, Larry couldn’t be bothered so he sent one of his lower level assistants…Gregg Popovich. I spent the next hour grilling him because nobody else really wanted to talk to him. I asked him about the “twin towers” as they had just drafted Schintiuz. We talked about the high-low game and how great the rim protection should be. He was as gracious as anybody could be and I’ve always enjoyed thinking back in that day as I watched him captain my beloved hometown sports team to places I never would have imagined. Get yourself right Pop and thank you.

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Posted
9 hours ago, Sbbruin said:

Tip of the cap, Pop.  Good man, and a helluva coach.

 

all of this. sooooo many great memories of going to spurs games. i loved that group of players and coach pop

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Posted
10 hours ago, C-Man said:

I knew this day was coming sooner than later. It's still hard. IMO, Pop is the greatest NBA coach/executive of all time. (Spare me the Red Auerbach/Phil Jackson talk today.)

I'm sure I've told this story before. (But I'm gonna tell it again.) It's 1996 and I'm fresh out of UT and working for free as a sports intern at KMOL. I was earning some walkaround money covering HS sports for the Express-News. TV was my main gig and what I thought I wanted to do, though. As the intern, I got to cover all kinds of stuff that came through town -- the Alamo Bowl, and Oscar De La Hoya fight, etc. But the Spurs were the main thing in town, for good reason.

As the only major pro sport in town, we covered them on a daily basis once training camp got going. With Pete Delgado and Don Harris back at the studio, I was the person they sent out to practices, shoot-arounds and all the home games with a videographer to get soundbites, run tapes at the Alamodome, etc. The 96-97 Spurs were fresh off a second-round loss to the Jazz and Bob Hill was back for Year 3 as HC. The Spurs were two seasons past having the best record in the NBA and a crushing loss to Houston in the WCF.

Franchise player David Robinson was coming off summer back surgery (or something). He would miss the first 18 games of the season and the Spurs stumbled to a 3-15 start. Oddly enough, just as Robinson is about to start playing again, Pop fires Hill and names himself head coach. How convenient. I couldn't believe it. I *think* this was his first year back in SA as the GM and he'd never been a HC anywhere that mattered. And he seemed like an asshole.

But Robinson is back and the Spurs could maybe win enough to sneak into the playoffs as the lower seed that nobody wanted to play. Well, it didn't quite go as planned. The Spurs were 3-3 in six games and then stunningly we learn that David is out long-term. To this day, I'm not sure if he was healthy enough to have come back near the end of the season but at that point, losses mattered more than wins. And the Spurs were doing plenty of the former. They cycled through players like Jamie Feick and Jason Sasser.

As you can imagine, interest quickly waned. It wasn't long before the only reporters at practice or gameday shootaround were myself and the SAEN beat writer (can't remember if it was Jerry Briggs still or if he was on the national NBA beat; it might've been Tim Griffin). That was it. Let's fast forward to the night of March 14. The putrid Celtics are in town. Avery Johnson is out of the lineup because he's having his tonsils removed or something. Second-year PG Cory Alexander gets the start, plays 47 mins, makes five 3's, scores 22 points and dishes out 10 assists. The Spurs win and "boost" their record to 16-47. (The Celtics finished with the worst record in the league and had the most balls in the lottery hopper. Ask Rick Pitino how that turned out.)

All I need for the news that night is a nice quote about Cory's game from Pop. We assemble in the post-game press room and I'm sitting on the first or second row. It's me, maybe the guy from the AP and Briggs or whoever from the EN. Oh, there's some videographers at the back of the room who will shout out a question if necessary.

I can't remember if I got the first or second question.

ME (with a smile creeping across my face): "So, uh, does Avery need to worry about his starting job when he's ready to come back?"

Hey Pop, just smile, maybe laugh, and give me a Cory blowjob quote that we can run with 20 seconds of highlights on the 10 pm sportscast.

Didn't happen. He thinks for a second and looks at me like I told him to go fuck himself.

POP: "Who are you? You're with who? Why are you here?"

Or something like that. It's hard to remember exactly. I was mortified. My face went flush.

Somebody mercifully asked another question. Unbowed, I fired off another question before we wrapped things up. I wanted to show him I wasn't intimidated. (I was.)

As I made my way to the room where we'd send the tape back to the station, KENS weekend sports anchor Chuck Mikitinic runs me down. He tells me he's appalled that Pop treated me like that. Said it was completely uncalled for and very unprofessional. Whatever. He's an asshole, I thought and I didn't think he was long for the franchise at that point. We made it through the year without incident and the Spurs kept losing. And losing. And losing.

But I noticed a funny thing. The team competed. Every night. They were talent deficient for sure. But damn if they didn't play hard.

I moved over to print journalism full time that summer and remained there until leaving the business In 2006. I left SA a year later for DFW and have not spoken to Pop since the end of that 20-62 season. A few times I was helping out with the Mavericks' playoff coverage but a Spurs-Mavs matchup never materialized before I left the business. I so wanted to pull Pop aside and ask if he remembered that March night at the Alamodome. (BTW, I'm pretty sure I was one of the first -- if not the first -- to get Pop's legendary "sideline reporter" treatment.) I didn't want to make him feel bad. I hoped we could share a laugh about it and I would (off the record) thank him for fulfilling my childhood dream of seeing the Spurs win the championship. I'd still like to see him in person again. I think the story would be far funnier to him today than it would've been in 2003 or so. Or maybe he'd ask me what I was doing there.

Today is a bittersweet day to say the least. Pop is the Spurs as far as I'm concerned and they will always be my favorite professional sports franchise. It's Texas Football and Spurs basketball. Those are 1A and 1B and they're pretty much interchangeable. And that cantankerous motherfucker made the Spurs the envy of American professional sports.

Thanks Pop. For everything.

Great post.

I remember in '98 listening to KISS radio in the morning listening to people call in to the radio station bitch about Pop. I recall turning into my work parking lot muttering something like "who the fuck does this asshole think he is?"

A year later we are celebrating a championship and that's the rest of the story.

God bless you Pop.

old-guy-old-man.gif

 

 

  • Haha 1
Posted
1 hour ago, ztejas said:

Like who? Who are y'all advocating we hire?

I'm not advocating anyone. Just saying you have an all world talent, it's a huge risk to hire a coach that has zero track record. I don't think he's good but I also thought pop was garbage after he fired Hill and struggled early on. 

Posted

Possible coaches:

Bud - just flamed out spectacularly.

Malone - just flamed out even more spectacularly 

Jenkins - I wouldn’t have minded, but whatever 

Becky - definitely would have interviewed 

Hurley - no thank you 

Borrego - definitely would have interviewed

Mike Brown - fuck no

One of these days, Royal Ivey is going to get his shot. Manu would probably be a great coach if he ever has the desire to do the job, but I can’t see him leaving his family. Will would be number one on the list, and maybe he gets tired of Utah. 

 

Posted
11 hours ago, Kermit said:

Possible coaches:

Bud - just flamed out spectacularly.

Malone - just flamed out even more spectacularly 

Jenkins - I wouldn’t have minded, but whatever 

Becky - definitely would have interviewed 

Hurley - no thank you 

Borrego - definitely would have interviewed

Mike Brown - fuck no

One of these days, Royal Ivey is going to get his shot. Manu would probably be a great coach if he ever has the desire to do the job, but I can’t see him leaving his family. Will would be number one on the list, and maybe he gets tired of Utah. 

 

I think Chauncey has shown some promise. 

Posted
On 5/3/2025 at 12:00 PM, Machinator said:

image.png.81648b91794711e5a0485c2abde7a2d6.png

Brad Townsend is as fine a sportswriter as I've ever run across. And an all-around great guy.

 

5 hours ago, Kermit said:

They’re running the press conference for Mitch. Pop spoke. It was pretty emotional seeing him up there. Dude looked pretty old all of a sudden.

That was tough. He was clearly nowhere near healing enough to get back on the sideline. A guy I used to work with at the Express News covers a lot of Spurs stuff for AP still. He apparently suggested to Spurs staff they should sell that "El Jefe" t-shirt and they said they might. I'd buy one.

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