UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY
With title out of reach this season, Pop, LeBron sharing a reality check
SAN ANTONIO — In a more familiar time, they knew not only where to find each other, but where to find themselves. More often than not, the top of the standings was a good place to look.
Over the past decade, no two men in basketball commanded more respect than the game’s most adored superstar and its most revered sage, and gradually this pair of worldly men formed quite a bond. Last winter, moments after Gregg Popovich lauded LeBron James as a real-life “Black Panther,” James called Popovich one of his “all-time favorite people.”
The connection made sense. Both guys cared about a lot more than basketball, and neither one had much experience with failure.
They see each other more often now, as they share a conference. And on Saturday, they shared an arena for the second time in a week. And although their teams are as adept as ever at providing entertainment — the latest installment ending in a 110-106 Spurs victory at the AT&T Center — the stakes have changed.
As for James’ and Popovich’s mutual admiration? They’re now in the middle of a mutual reality check.
Barring a series of wildly unlikely developments, James and Popovich both will be on vacation next June, and that’s noteworthy in and of itself. They have combined to make 15 NBA Finals appearances in the past 20 years, including three against each other, and in that time neither man ever has spent late October already knowing a championship was out of reach.
But another ring for either of them this season is unrealistic, and Saturday’s game — while loads of fun to watch — showed plenty of reasons why. James’ band of kids and misfits is too disjointed, and will be until another franchise player arrives next summer.
The Spurs, meanwhile, continue to yield baskets at a historic pace, and there will be no quick fix for that, either. They only can hope that watching the scoreboard hit 130 too many times doesn’t cause Popovich to spontaneously combust.
To his credit, he realizes he might need to alter his expectations, much in the same way James did when he arrived in Los Angeles. After making eight consecutive trips to the Finals, James knew full well he was putting that streak in jeopardy when he signed with the Lakers, and he alluded this when he preached patience after his loss to the Spurs on Monday.
“I know what I got myself into,” James said. “It's a process. I get it, and we’ll be fine. I didn't come here thinking we were going to be blazing, storming right out of the gate. It’s a process, and I understand that.”
Popovich gets it, too, and his plans for this season might have more in common with James’ than people think. The Spurs, too, might be in position to add a piece next offseason, when the Warriors might finally be ready to break up the band and provide the rest of the Western Conference with a bit of an opening.
Popovich might not have as much time to wait around as James does, but their respective windows are closing, and both of them might figure that 2019-20 might give them the best shot of jumping through it.
There are those who believe any team not in the title hunt should blow it up and start over. But that approach doesn’t make much sense for a franchise featuring the game’s most respected coach, an AllStar big man in LaMarcus Aldridge, and an undeniably elite offensive player in DeMar DeRozan.
Once again Saturday, DeRozan did his part to dispel the insane notion that the Spurs got fleeced in the Kawhi Leonard trade, which they were forced to make with an obvious lack of leverage and yet somehow got an elite player in return.
Is DeRozan the same caliber of two-way, topfive-in-the-NBA superstar that Leonard is? Of course not. But he can be the best player on a very good team, and it’s becoming clear the Spurs — who never were going to get full value for Leonard — did well to get DeRozan.
So Popovich has something to build around here, just as James does in Los Angeles. If the Lakers add somebody like Anthony Davis while Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart keep progressing, they will be one of the teams to beat again. The Spurs won’t be able to match that, probably, but the return of Dejounte Murray and another solid free-agent pickup could keep them in the running.
Still, for both James and Popovich, this isn’t like it once was. For what seemed like forever, they were about the current year, and not the next one.
Now, as they learn how the rest of the NBA lived during all of that time, they can relate to each other.
Just like they always did.