DoctorX wrote:f4p wrote:CIN-C-STAR wrote:
I dont think it should be personally held against him, but I also think it's ok to acknowledge that sustaining success with one team is more difficult than jumping to the team with the most assets every few years.
yes, playing your whole career for the best coach ever, with hall of fame teammates from year 1 to year 19 (usually 2-4 at a time), it must have been an incredible strain on timmy. now carrying mo williams to 66 wins, that's the easy part.
The Spurs from '01-'04 were not a loaded team. Duncan did not have any all-star teammates during that time period. He definitely carried that team during that stretch.
in things like PER, WS48, BPM and even net on/off, david robinson in 2001 is slightly ahead of duncan in the regular season and basically tied with duncan in the playoffs (they each win a couple categories). robinson was still an incredible player at this point (and in 1999). the spurs finished #1 in SRS in 2001 and then got curbstomped by the lakers. the spurs finished 3rd, 3rd, and 1st in SRS in the next 3 years (blew an 0-2 lead to the lakers in 2004 as the #1 SRS team). they may not have been "loaded", but they had an elite rim protector in robinson (all the way out to 2003) in a league that barely knew what a 3 pointer was yet, they had the best perimeter defender in the league in a league that loved perimter iso's, and their 3P% went 1st/11th/10th/6th in those years, so they could spread the court. it was a defensive juggernaut with good shooting and up and coming guards.
Also coaching is overrated in the NBA. A coach is only as great as his player. Look at Pop right now he's not doing anything great right now with the current spurs. If he was truly some amazing miracle worker, the Spurs would not be the worst team in the league.
having a coach who gets everyone in the right position on every possession for 20 straight years, even when it's the middle of january and most teams don't care, is a huge reason the spurs could just churn out 55 win regular seasons. and why they always bowed up on defense in big moments. the spurs won 61 games the year after duncan retired and then, even with kawhi basically just quitting, still won 48 games and had the #3 defense the next year. let's not try to pretend like having pop isn't a sizable benefit, especially compared to guys with bad coaches.
Thirdly Lebron would have gotten Pop fired. Duncan allowed Pop to coach but I doubt Lebron would allow Pop to get up in his face and curse him out and not do anything about it. That's what people forget very few players have the temperament to deal with a coach like Pop. In the current league I think only Jokic, Curry, Giannis could deal with Pop without wanting to get him fired.
based on what, though? pop won a title in duncan's 2nd year and practically swept the playoffs. that gives you a lot of "this guy knows what he's talking about" credibility. what was duncan going to do, tell the franchise pop doesn't know what he's talking about? and even then, duncan damn near left in free agency early in his career, because it had been like 15 minutes since he last won a title. we have no way of knowing if lebron would stay because he got trash to work with and then was basically chasing jordan after that. initial conditions matter. jordan wasn't easy to deal with, but stayed with jackson forever. magic johnson seemed to have a pretty big ego, but he and pat riley stayed together for like 10 years. guys tend to stay with coaches who win. lebron didn't seem to have any problem with spoelstra after they won. people try to play the "coachability" card for duncan because they don't want to say he was in a perfect situation with an amazing coach, so we have to find a way to give the credit for all of pops defensive schemes, the beautiful game spurs, the late game execution, it all gets filed under "well, it wouldn't have happened if duncan wasn't coachable so really pop's brilliance is really just more credit to duncan". like pop was the first coach to ever yell.
