Fictional basketball: Where would Greg Popovich be if he got Ron Mercer instead of Tim Duncan in 1997

[boomershadow]

He would be a hall of famecoach with 6 titles, and people would really wonder if he was any good at coaching really, because having a superstar like Ron Mercer on your team makes it look easy.

[normgod6]

no coach who was able to orchestrate the 2014 spurs is overrated. People has so quickly forgotten how beautifully that team played team basketball

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[KodiakBear]

I cant wait for the Pats to have another below average year so everyone can say Bill Belicheck sucks too.

It is actually a similar deal. He doesn't suck. He is a great coach, but like Popovich with Duncan, Belicheck has been highly elevated because he had a superstar quarterback for two decades. Without Tom Brady, Belicheck is a journeyman coach that would have some success and may have won a Super Bowl, but his legacy wouldn't even be close to it is now. Remember his record with the Cleveland Browns wasn't good. Popovich coached Pomona-Pitzer a D3 college in the 80's. His record was 76-129. Yes, of course you can say he improved as a coach in the decade from when he got fired to when he took over with the Spurs, but it is telling. At that level coaching is far more important than in the NBA which is a star driven player's league, yet Popovich never could do better than 16-12.

[JayMKE]

Who knows, the whole reason Pop even got into coaching was to salvage his FO job so I guess it depends on what happened next when Robinson came back, they won 56 games the next year but yeah there probably is a decent chance he gets ****canned in San Antonio but I'm pretty sure he'd land on his feet somewhere else but to what success who knows.

[benson13]

He's 72 and past it, which is normal at this age, it doesn't take away all the great years he had as a coach.

He was in his prime when he subbed out Duncan out of the game that time they just needed one rebound to win a championship against the Heat.

As a Spurs fan I was incredibly frustrated by his dismissal of press conference questions about that.

[Big J]

He'd still be great. Him & Phil are the only 2 coaches I've seen who were able to get stars to check their ego's at the door for the greater good.

[Marty McFly]

don't know where he'd be, but the knicks might have won that 1999 title.

[Sedale Threatt]

He's 72 and past it, which is normal at this age, it doesn't take away all the great years he had as a coach.

He was in his prime when he subbed out Duncan out of the game that time they just needed one rebound to win a championship against the Heat.

As a Spurs fan I was incredibly frustrated by his dismissal of press conference questions about that.

You know, a fun fact, I was a backup beat writer for the SAEN that season, and I actually went back through the play-by-play to chart this because I remembered them sitting Duncan multiple times during the season in similar situations. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me (it's buried somewhere on my Twitter feed and I don't have the desire/time to go dig it up), but it was at least 7 or 8 times, and they got a stop every single time.

Trust me, I will get on Pop for a lot, with his treatment of the press being right at the top of the list. (During those same Finals, I saw him throw a five-minute tantrum in front of the national media because -- horror of horrors -- he was being made to speak two days in a row. It was probably the most embarrassing thing I saw in three years covering the NBA full-time, and a bunch of other spot duty over the years. A toddler shouldn't act like that, let alone a grandfather.)

But it's hard to blame a coach for going back to the well on something that worked all season.

[ItsDanger]

Often a common variable is the cause of the problem for a very good reason. Time for a change. Or just make more excuses.

[benson13]

He was in his prime when he subbed out Duncan out of the game that time they just needed one rebound to win a championship against the Heat.

As a Spurs fan I was incredibly frustrated by his dismissal of press conference questions about that.

You know, a fun fact, I was a backup beat writer for the SAEN that season, and I actually went back through the play-by-play to chart this because I remembered them sitting Duncan multiple times during the season in similar situations. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me (it's buried somewhere on my Twitter feed and I don't have the desire/time to go dig it up), but it was at least 7 or 8 times, and they got a stop every single time.

Trust me, I will get on Pop for a lot, with his treatment of the press being right at the top of the list. (During those same Finals, I saw him throw a five-minute tantrum in front of the national media because -- horror of horrors -- he was being made to speak two days in a row. It was probably the most embarrassing thing I saw in three years covering the NBA full-time, and a bunch of other spot duty over the years. A toddler shouldn't act like that, let alone a grandfather.)

But it's hard to blame a coach for going back to the well on something that worked all season.

I wasn't so much unhappy about his decision. Actually I was. I don't have your numbers, but I remember late in Timmy's career Pop would often sit him at the end of games for free throw shooting and/or defense. It did work, but most things did for the Spurs back then.

I don't need to see your numbers to know that the Ray Allen play wasn't the first time it failed. It also failed the previous Heat possession when Mike Miller got an offensive rebound off a LeBron miss. That was followed by LBJ hitting a three. Maybe that should have given him reason to make an adjustment. It might not even have mattered. That Heat team was damned good.

I get it. Hindsight it 20/20, and I love Gregg Popovich. He was asked about that move(keeping Duncan on the bench), and he didn't seem to want to answer it.

Edit: To be clear, I'm not laying the blame for that loss on Pop's decision either. There were two missed three throws in the last minute, and giving up offensive rebounds is generally unacceptable no matter who's in the game.

[Lalouie]

i never think about what if's concerning whether a player was NOT on his team of destiny or whether a team ended up with another player.

i think about injury what if's however

[Heat3]

No one wins without stars. I thought he’d be a failure when he fired the previous coach and took over. I hadn’t seen many execs do that before. But I was wrong. He is damn good coach. One of the best. At the end of the day it’s the players that have to perform.

What are people saying about Giannis and Bud right now if Durant’s toe was a few inches further back and he hit a 3 instead of a 2?

[Sedale Threatt]

As a Spurs fan I was incredibly frustrated by his dismissal of press conference questions about that.

You know, a fun fact, I was a backup beat writer for the SAEN that season, and I actually went back through the play-by-play to chart this because I remembered them sitting Duncan multiple times during the season in similar situations. I don't have the exact numbers in front of me (it's buried somewhere on my Twitter feed and I don't have the desire/time to go dig it up), but it was at least 7 or 8 times, and they got a stop every single time.

Trust me, I will get on Pop for a lot, with his treatment of the press being right at the top of the list. (During those same Finals, I saw him throw a five-minute tantrum in front of the national media because -- horror of horrors -- he was being made to speak two days in a row. It was probably the most embarrassing thing I saw in three years covering the NBA full-time, and a bunch of other spot duty over the years. A toddler shouldn't act like that, let alone a grandfather.)

But it's hard to blame a coach for going back to the well on something that worked all season.

I wasn't so much unhappy about his decision. Actually I was. I don't have your numbers, but I remember late in Timmy's career Pop would often sit him at the end of games for free throw shooting and/or defense. It did work, but most things did for the Spurs back then.

I don't need to see your numbers to know that the Ray Allen play wasn't the first time it failed. It also failed the previous Heat possession when Mike Miller got an offensive rebound off a LeBron miss. That was followed by LBJ hitting a three. Maybe that should have given him reason to make an adjustment. It might not even have mattered. That Heat team was damned good.

I get it. Hindsight it 20/20, and I love Gregg Popovich. He was asked about that move(keeping Duncan on the bench), and he didn't seem to want to answer it.

Edit: To be clear, I'm not laying the blame for that loss on Pop's decision either. There were two missed three throws in the last minute, and giving up offensive rebounds is generally unacceptable no matter who's in the game.

That’s very fair. Yeah, he just doesn’t like being questioned, which is something I really lost a lot of respect for him over. I mean, it can’t be fun, especially after a loss like that, but you see most coaches doing it professionally and courteously, and there’s no excuse why he can’t. Especially given that it’s part of the machine that enables him to maintain a world-class wine cellar and a vacation compound in Maine.

Part and parcel with that particular situation was why he didn’t foul, which I remember him being really condescending to a foreign reporter who asked him why he didn’t. There’s a whiff of that in how he’s treating these losses; you can still give credit to the other team while acknowledging that the performance wasn’t acceptable. For somebody who constantly asks his players to get over themselves, that’s an area he really falls short.

[DoctorX]

He'd still be great. Him & Phil are the only 2 coaches I've seen who were able to get stars to check their ego's at the door for the greater good.

Tim Duncan deserves credit for that. It was only because Duncan allowed Pop to coach him that the other players followed. If Pop had to coach even a Lebron James type of superstar he would be canned within a few months. No way Lebron would put up with his yelling and his mantra of "It's my way or the highway." Very few guys enjoy playing for Pop which has been more obvious since Duncan retired.

[macNcheese3]

Legendary coach for sure, just not the same without Duncan and the crew. Team USA should have gone in a different direction coaching wise.

[DoctorX]

Pop is just old and out of touch honestly nowadays.

He was a great coach just 5 years ago but it just seems like he lost his fire and zeal to be great after his wife died.

He's made outrageously dumb decisions even when he was in his coaching "prime". My personal favorite was him ditching the twin tower lineup the Spurs used all season long of Duncan/Nazr and instead start Bruce Bowen at PF to guard Dirk in the '06 playoffs. Also whenever Bowen wasn't guarding Dirk he would have Michael Finley guard him in that '06 series. Very stupid idea and it had no effect on Dirk if anything Dirk put up better numbers in that series then he did during the regular season.

People need to stop making excuses for Pop's incompetence. The man has always made stupid coaching decisions with the Spurs but got away with it simply because Duncan could clean up his mess and make him look good.

[DoctorX]

don't know where he'd be, but the knicks might have won that 1999 title.

They would have ended up playing the Lakers or Blazers if Duncan never ended up on the Spurs in '99. Knicks vs Lakers or Knicks vs Blazers in '99 would have been interesting. I think the Lakers would have won but Blazers could go either way since they were mentally a fragile team despite being talented.

[azcatz11]

Legendary coach for sure, just not the same without Duncan and the crew. Team USA should have gone in a different direction coaching wise.

Yep - he's over the hill. Team USA needs a younger coach with more energy. The whole Team USA program is extremely stale right now

[DoctorX]

Out of coaching or like Mr Patches Perry says, part of the carousel where he would have coached 4 different teams in the past 20 years.

Popovich was a great coach, but even as a great coach he was overrated. He got more credit than he deserved for those titles and the Spurs run. He deserved credit, but people were making it seem it his was his great coaching and not the great talent led by one of the best players to ever play. He should have got the Phil Jackson level of credit. People give Phil Jackson credit and he is considered a great coach, but people don't put his role on equal footing with Jordan or Kobe's role in those 11 rings.

To top it off, he is way over the hill. He was 100% the wrong choice to coach Team USA. Team USA has been extremely embarrassing so far and Pop deserves his share of blame for the horrible product that is out there. Even the 2004 letdown at least got a medal. Does anyone here think Team USA will get a medal at this point? I don't know if they even make it to the knockout stage.

Pop lucked out to a large degree that Duncan was a very private superstar and hated the spotlight. Usually the best player is the face of a championship team but because Duncan shunned the spotlight it allowed Pop to be the face of the spurs and inflated his legacy. If Duncan had the charisma of Jordan,Lebron,Kobe,Magic then Pop doesn't get the same type of hype and legacy boost.

[azcatz11]

Out of coaching or like Mr Patches Perry says, part of the carousel where he would have coached 4 different teams in the past 20 years.

Popovich was a great coach, but even as a great coach he was overrated. He got more credit than he deserved for those titles and the Spurs run. He deserved credit, but people were making it seem it his was his great coaching and not the great talent led by one of the best players to ever play. He should have got the Phil Jackson level of credit. People give Phil Jackson credit and he is considered a great coach, but people don't put his role on equal footing with Jordan or Kobe's role in those 11 rings.

To top it off, he is way over the hill. He was 100% the wrong choice to coach Team USA. Team USA has been extremely embarrassing so far and Pop deserves his share of blame for the horrible product that is out there. Even the 2004 letdown at least got a medal. Does anyone here think Team USA will get a medal at this point? I don't know if they even make it to the knockout stage.

Pop lucked out to a large degree that Duncan was a very private superstar and hated the spotlight. Usually the best player is the face of a championship team but because Duncan shunned the spotlight it allowed Pop to be the face of the spurs and inflated his legacy. If Duncan had the charisma of Jordan,Lebron,Kobe,Magic then Pop doesn't get the same type of hype and legacy boost.

Interesting...not sure I agree but it's an interesting statement.