So Denis Johnson, M L Carr and Robert Parish wasn't an intrigue part of Celtics run? They were just as important in Celtics championships runs as any other players! What about last year Miami team? Did have a Euro player on their championship roster? STOP forcing the issue of race.
I will say this for a country of America's size there should be at least SOME good white players. It does mystify me that America cannot produce: Dirk Manu Scola Bogut to name a few
The Spurs ran only slightly different sets in 2011 than they did in 2012. They put a few new motion p&r in and tweaked a few things. That's it. Their offense probably consisted of 80-90% of the same plays. With McDyess retiring and the Spurs not replacing him with another big, the Spurs ran a bit more of a spread offense, with Bonner getting more consistent PT. Other than that the Spurs didn't change jack. That's just an isult to Gregg Popovic. "D'Antoni's offense", as displayed in that video are simple spread pick&roll variotions that have been around forever. The majority of NBA teams have those kind of plays in their playbook. The difference with D'Antoni is that he runs more pick&roll than just about anybody and doesn't care about defensive mismatches, as long as he has a mismatch on offense. Having more capable shooters on the floor obviously tends to help your offense. Of course, usually those shooters -- often playing out of position -- won't be able to guard their man on defense either, which is one of the reasons D'Antoni's teams are usually so bad on defense. (The other reason being that D'Antoni doesn't give a crap about teaching/choaching defense, nor gameplaning for a team defensively). But yes, you are right that Pop is a great coach and a great coach copy/steal ideas from. FWIW Popovic and Adelman run the same backscreen post-up play. I don't know who stole it from whom, but Adelman runs it more frequently, whereas Popovic seems to want to "save" the play, often only running it SLOB, when they need a bucket. Of course, anytime you consider copying sets or an entire system you better make sure that it fits the players on your roster. A system that might work great for another team can be useless on another team, if the players can't take advantage of it. That's what seperates the great coaches like Popovic from other "good" choaches. He comes up/designs plays that are tailor-made for his roster.
Exactly. Duncan was the super star every team needs, and by the time he started to fade, they had team chemistry and great coaching / front office to help compensate.
Perfect, dynamic, unselfish team basketball that involves players with a high ball-iq and good vision, shooting.
1. They have a player anchor, a true franchise maker. - Timmy Duncan 2. They know how to evaluate talent. - front office 3. They have a top-down authority structure that starts with Pops. They bench guys that cause a problem and get rid of them as soon as they can. Consequently, nobody messes with the coaches. 4. Because of #3, they're not afraid to acquire players that may have been problems on other teams (SJax), because they know the player will conform most of the time to be a contributor to the team success. Right now they are considering Blatche. And it makes sense. There's nothing to lose and if Pops and Timmy can get him straight, they win big time. 5. They're not afraid to make bold moves and trade good players. Witness George Hill/Kawhi Leonard. 6. They recognize where the strength of their team is and play to their strengths. Hence the adjustment last season to running more stuff for Tony Parker. 7. They were one of the pioneers in drafting and stashing talent in Europe. And they are very good at it. Another product of their scouting department and front office. ................... Of those listed above our Rockets lack: #1 A franchise player #3 We don't have an authoritarian head coach who essentially runs the franchise. Different power structure here. The rolling of coaches in and out has been a factor in our limited success. It has caused problems with players more so than just trading guys. The changing systems which causes player personnel to change is what really bothers players more than players being moved because changing systems is what causes more than normal player turnover. #4 Because we really don't have an anchor or authoritarian coach, it is impossible for us to trade for guys or sign guys that have significant talent but have been a problem elsewhere. We can't afford to take that risk. Hopefully at some point Morey and Les COMMIT to a coach and coaching staff long-term. In my opinion, this is the biggest structural problem that we have. Even more so than acquiring a franchise player. I hated when we let Adelman walk......AND I STILL HATE IT! You want to know the real reason why superstars don't want to come here. It's because we are rolling coaches and systems in and out of here. If we had stuck with Adelman's system, we would be closer to acquiring our franchise guy by now because of the oncourt success we would be having. Les' impatience in this area and Darryl's constantly fiddling with the coaches is our #1 problem.
Oh c'mon! This is one of the biggest fallacies in sports. The team who tanked that year wasn't the Spurs, it was actually Boston under Rick Pitino. If tanking was the real reason the Spurs were successful then explain why the Cavs and Orlando have nothing to show for themselves after getting Shaq, DH and Lebron. Fact is, the Spurs coaching staff is the best in the world. They aren't just amazing X and Os guys, they also do a great job of getting their players to achieve their full potential. Parker when he started out had no jumpshot to speak off and didn't play D, Pops sat him down until he defended and he brought shot doctors who broke down Parker's shooting form and fixed it. Same thing with Kawhi leonard, everyone projected him as a poor man's Trevor Ariza and said he'd be nothing more than a good defender in the NBA. Well here he is draining J's left and right, and Pops is talking about how he might become their next best player (TROLOLOL if true but still...). Not only that, their coaching staff forges connections with their players and gets them on the same page. TD was a FA and was being wooed by everyone, at the end of the day not only did he resign with the Spurs he also took a discount so they could keep Parker and Manu in the fold. You can say, well that's just TD being TD but then how do you explain Richard Jefferson and Boris Diaw sucking on their old teams then suddenly becoming effective bball players on the Spurs? As for the TP's post about the Spurs copying D'Antoni's style....c'mon man. D'Antoni bball involves getting mismatches on offense then running PNRs all day long, their trademark is that ball should go in the hoop 7 seconds or less. The Spurs traditionally are a half court, slow it down team. With Parker becoming their best player, they've shifted into a PNR oriented style, but that doesn't mean they're copying D'Antoni. D'Antoni uses PNR the most, but every team uses them, esp. if you have a dynamic pg like Parker. Hell we used PNR a ton last year as well, its a very basic but deadly play in the NBA.
I have the highest respect to Pop too. He is a master at managing his players and know exactly how to get the most out of them. IMO This offensive system should work on any team without a true superstar who iso's or posts up a lot. Before 2010, their offense was dump-it-to-Duncan and the ones we saw on the first vid. Spurs, for the last two years, ran pretty much the same offense, and last year was just fine tuning and tweaking. But they made a drastic change from 09 to 10. This was the difference that made their offense so potent. Consider the following: - The core players of Ginobilli, Duncan, and Parker were all past their prime. They all had better statistical years than the last two seasons. - They haven't added any relevant players. - Their offensive efficiency ranked - 08-09--12th - 09-10--9th - 10-11--2nd (only 0.5% behind Miami) - 11-12--1st You dont make a jump from 9th to almost 1st in one year without major and drastic changes, especially with the same roster and core players aged one more year. This is the point I was trying to make. If Spurs can improve by 10 games/season, it can also happen with other teams. They do have a franchise player but he is not the same player he was 10 years ago. They also have the same big 3 core players for the last 10 years. Team chemistry was never a concern. Spurs is a team that suppose to get worse each year. Everyone was predicting that but they didnt. They got better the last two years! Full credit to Pop and FO! Definitely agree that Rockets need a stable coaching staff.
The spurs had the admiral on the roster they all did some good drafting. If the cavs FO wasn't incompetent (Huges) or if boozer hadn't lied I think lebron might still have been in Cleveland.
!st of all, Europe is white even the Spanish. 2ndly, as most of us are saying, you build a good team by getting good to really good players to play together in a good system which the Spurs have done. They've been running basically the same system since Pop was in their FO. The year Robinson was injured, they didn't bring him back for a meaningless last 2 months of the season & that action was then labeled "tanking". They then won the #1 pick(Duncan) over the Celtics (who flat out sucked, but didn't tank?). Since then they've been running that same system. The Spurs have stayed a contender since then drafting consistently great players in the 20's & adding great role players. Their organization top to bottom is the best in the NBA.
Did you ever watch San Antonio play last year? Parker was dominating almost every game. Stats don't mean everything. The only players who impacted a team more last year were Lebron and Durant. The Spurs are great because they have a coach that adapts to players, he doesn't make them adapt to his system. Also he has been able to get great talent to build around.
Spurs FO is very good at talent evaluation. They never have a high draft pick but get quality players that fit the team. Kawhi Leonard was available when the Rockets chose last year and he fit a need, yet Morey decide to go unconventional an pick Morrison. You are only a genius if the unconventional picks work, and Morey's rarely do. Something to think about when Les is looking for a new GM next summer....
the spurs have definitely proven that you do not need superstars to win championships. all you need is a fantastic coach and three hall of famers and you're good to go.
