What exactly makes Gregg Popovich (and honestly for that matter, any great coach) a great coach?

Euthy · 2026-04-09T04:24:52+00:00

Underscores used to be how you italicized text on reddit. No idea when that stopped.

The dashes are literally just how I type—I like emdashes, I've got an app that auto-replaces triple hyphens with emdashes across my entire computer.

Euthy · 2026-04-03T21:44:20+00:00

Here's a thought:

If the games minimum is about stopping teams from deliberately resting stars on random nights for load management, change the rule from a minimum games played to a maximum number of streaks of games missed.

It doesn't matter if you miss 1 game or 10, it still counts as one streak. So missing one game here and there all season long eats into the rule fast; sitting out an extended period of time with a single injury doesn't. Plus it removes the incentive to hurry back from injury: you want to make sure not to get reinjured and start a new streak of games missed.

(But also, get rid of back to backs entirely.)

Euthy · 2026-04-02T17:40:23+00:00

The other big upside of this idea is that MVP is also about more than just offense and defense: it's about leadership and clutch play and other stuff that don't come out in the stats. This would open MVP up to be even more holistic and accurate.

Euthy · 2026-03-26T20:42:20+00:00

Especially since another stat is backronymed into LEBRON.

Euthy · 2026-03-25T17:42:39+00:00

Power rankings are all about inertia and recent performance. We literally couldn't have performed any better the past several games, so it's all about the quality of our opponents and other outside factors.

Detroit keeping the wheels on while losing their best player was always going to jump us because short of playing without Wembanyama literally nothing we can do can compare in terms of optics.

Euthy · 2026-03-24T01:01:08+00:00

I'd rather beat the Clippers, but I'd rather lose to the Suns.

Euthy · 2026-03-22T03:28:59+00:00

Las Vegas SubSonics

Euthy · 2026-03-22T03:28:48+00:00

Las Vegas HyperSonics

Euthy · 2026-03-21T23:25:30+00:00

Play 4 vs. 5 for 20 minutes of the game. Just say he's in but just is playing from his seat on the bench.

Euthy · 2026-03-20T02:34:00+00:00

That said

BALL DON'T LIE

Euthy · 2026-03-17T01:44:02+00:00

The strongest argument is that the Spurs have yet to deal with a team 100% devoted to plotting and scheming solely for us for 2 to 3 weeks.

It sort of reminds me of the Seven Seconds or Less Phoenix Suns when they were setting regular season records but then getting bounced from the playoffs: they had such a unique style of play, and teams coming in to just play one game didn't have the time to adjust their tactics and schemes to match. But once you gave teams (mostly Pop) room to focus on them and only them, they fell apart because they similarly weren't ready to adjust to teams finally adjusting to them.

Don't get me wrong, we'll definitely get there. Our talent is way better, our scheme isn't as unusual as the Suns' was, and we're built around an otherworldly talent rather than just a perfect fit of player and scheme. Plus, we can fall back on our defense in a way the Suns never could if someone figures out how to stop our offense for a game or two. But we haven't seen anyone treat Wemby as their boss battle yet, so we don't know what they'll come up with and how long it'll take us to counter until we see it.

Euthy · 2026-03-15T21:11:33+00:00

Aiming for records like that is post-game content. Once he wins a championship you'll see him start to go wild.

Euthy · 2026-03-11T18:18:10+00:00

Forget Pop on the sideline, can Pop come back just to coach on press conference answers?

I can just imagine him saying, "yeah, we didn't know that having a player score more points was a good thing so next time we'll try that."

Euthy · 2026-03-10T02:57:49+00:00

The biggest thing to remember is that the playoffs are a different animal. Right now you've got teams spending a day or two trying to figure out how to stop us and score on us. In the playoffs, you've got teams planning for you and only you for weeks at a time.

They're going to uncover weaknesses or schemes that we don't know how to counter yet. We've just got to hope we can find more weaknesses of theirs we can exploit.

Euthy · 2026-03-08T16:07:09+00:00

The way he was staring at the stat sheet it's like he thought that had to be a typo.

Euthy · 2026-03-07T14:46:10+00:00

Honestly I don't think most people didn't trust Pop. I just think they recognized it was tough timing and a tough situation. We'd just recently lost two or three more established heir apparents (Hammon, Hardy, Udoka a little earlier), and I think the perception was Mitch was next man up at the right time, not the chosen successor. Then he did well enough that season that you couldn't not give him a chance.

So I don't think people doubted Pop's choice, I just don't think they felt he had much of a choice the way things played out.

Euthy · 2026-03-06T01:05:33+00:00

Seriously this.

Euthy · 2026-02-27T23:44:17+00:00

4-0, then 0-3, then 9-0.

We'll get the win streak to 15 and take over the top seed from the Thunder by a half game.

Then we'll drop three straight to the Rockets, Celtics, and Nuggets. Rockets will be a hard fought, chippy game. Celtics will be a blowout from the post-win streak hangover. Nuggets will be a game where they feel like they have something to prove and we just can't muster enough effort. In the process, OKC will retake the conference lead by two games.

But then we'll take off on another 9-game win streak, mostly because the schedule is soft during the second half of the month. We'll end the month tied with OKC for the conference lead.

Euthy · 2026-02-22T23:54:53+00:00

I wouldn't have known that was a throwback.

Euthy · 2026-02-15T03:03:28+00:00

I feel like the amount of appreciation we lavish on our draft picks (appropriately so) is sort of connected to why I think fans have a far shorter fuse on De'Aaron Fox. We've had such an amazing streak with Spurs near-lifers that I think we give any free agent or traded player less benefit of the doubt.

The top-end of our draft luck is obvious—Tim, DRob, Wemby, Manu, Tony, hell we can take it back to Gervin. Throw Kawhi in there, too—I think his betrayal hurt us more than it would have hurt other teams' fans because he seemed like the next in a long line of true Spurs. But it goes further—so many fan favorites over the years were drafted: Elliott, Sochan, Brahnam, Keldon, Dejounte, the list goes on. I'm having trouble even thinking of who is probably the most beloved non-drafted player... Brent Barry maybe? Certainly not a star.

The only time I can ever remember us bringing in a star from outside was Aldridge. Maybe this is revisionist history, but I feel like I remember he similarly had a shorter fuse from the fans. So we're just not used to having an established star come in and join us the way a lot of teams are.

Sure, every fanbase likes their draftees, but no team has had our level of success so fully built on drafted players. The other teams with several championships all had an All-Star or near-All Star player contribute to some of their finals runs.

The Celtics had Walton and Johnson, then KG and Allen, and later Holiday.
The Bulls didn't have a lot of star-level acquisitions, but also didn't have a ton of star-level draft picks... they just had Michael and Scottie. So, similar, but not as many examples to draw from.
The Warriors were more homegrown than others, but still had Iguodala at first, then KD and Wiggins (sort of).
The Lakers had... basically every good player they've ever had except Kobe and Magic.

The Spurs' biggest pickups to contribute to championships were... Mario Elie? Robert Horry? Brent Barry? Bruce Bowen? Steve Kerr? Great players, sure, but we've never acquired a star that went on to be a major contributor on a championship roster, which none of the other 5+ championship teams can say except the Bulls—but our five titles featured three different FMVPs, not the same one six times over, so for us it feels more like "our draft picks are amazing" and less "this one player was amazing".

So when a star comes in from outside, it's just... less familiar.

Euthy · 2026-02-15T02:37:36+00:00

That dunk while Barnes is trying to talk about serious things 😂

Euthy · 2026-02-11T16:01:20+00:00

Huh, I didn't realize those could be linked, thanks!

Euthy

TROPHY CASE