Progress won’t show in standings
DALLAS — It was a few weeks after the NBA trade deadline in March 2021, and Steve Clifford was still morose.
In a slew of roster-stripping deals, Orlando Magic brass had signaled the club’s intention of pulling the plug on a team that had made the playoffs two years running and instead rebuild for the future.
It was tough news for the team’s coach at the time — Clifford — to take.
Not long after waving the white flag on their season, the Magic were in San Antonio to face the Spurs. In need of a professional pick-me-up, Clifford received one from Gregg Popovich.
“Listen, this is not going to be easy,” Clifford, now the Charlotte coach, says Popovich told him. “Just teach your way through it.”
Two years later, with Popovich in the midst of a trying season of his own, it took until Game 56 for the Hall of Fame-bound Spurs coach to forget his own advice.
In the aftermath of a 120110 loss to a Cliffordcoached Hornets squad last week that sent the Spurs spinning into the All-Star break on a clubrecord 14-game losing skid, Popovich left sounding a bit like a disgruntled Yogi Berra.
“This ‘young’ thing,” Popovich said, “is getting old.”
The Spurs return from hiatus Thursday in Dallas at 14-45, the second-worst mark in the NBA.
One of the most youthful teams in the league has 23 games remaining this season with which to grow older and — Popovich can only hope — wiser.
“We are a young group, so it is not always going to be perfect,” said Jeremy Sochan, the Spurs’ 19-yearold starting forward. “We know we are in a situation where it is going to be tough on us, because we aren’t as experienced as other teams. We just have to keep growing.”
Gauging that growth could be a tricky proposition.
The signposts won’t come in the standings. The worse the Spurs’ final record, the better they maximize their chances to secure a potentially franchise-altering draft pick in June.
For the 74-year-old Popovich, the job between now and the Spurs’ April 9 finale — also in Dallas — is to ensure the soil is fertilized for the next step in his players’ development.
“We’re always honest with them — we’re not going to amaze the world,” Popovich said. “Our job is do develop people individually, decide who we want to move forward with and get them into team concepts so they know what it takes to play in the league. That’s how we measure it.”
Good thing, because the measurable numbers have not been kind to the Spurs.
They rank 29th in offensive rating. Their defensive rating of 119.8 is on track to be the worst in the NBA history. Their net rating of minus-10.1 ranks last in the NBA.
They have been outscored by a total of 600 points, most in the league.
All of this helps to explain why Popovich began his break so grouchy after the double-digit defeat in Charlotte.
“It’s the same mistakes — giving up middle, not blocking out, not getting back in transition,” he said. “It’s inexcusable. Youth’s got nothing to do with it. At some point, you’ve got to take pride in what you’re doing, execution-wise and competitively”
Other coaches who have been through similar rebuilding projects acknowledge the process can be painstaking.
They also feel Popovich’s pain.
“You get frustrated when you don’t see wins,
but you do see growth,” Detroit coach Dwane Casey said. “Fans want to win yesterday. They don’t understand how long it takes sometimes to develop when you’re starting from scratch, from the ground up, with all rookies and second-year guys.”
The Pistons have selected in the top seven for three consecutive drafts. In 2021, they used the first overall slot on Cade Cunningham.
That accumulation of top-shelf talent has yet to bear fruit on the court.
With a 15-44 record that ranks last in the Eastern Conference, Detroit is on pace to secure another lofty draft choice this summer.
Absent an improvement in his team’s record, Casey looks for daily validation in the minutia of the game.
“You see little things,” Casey said. “You see guys understanding pick-androll situations. How they get over screens when they are switching. Talking, communicating.
“Sometimes,” Casey said, “it’s about small victories.” For the Spurs, those small victories come every time point guard Tre Jones properly reads a defense and gets the team into the right set; or Keldon Johnson makes the appropriate pass after drawing extra defenders; or Sochan recognizes his man zipping backdoor and moves to cut him off before a dunk happens.
These are the moments that bring Popovich the most satisfaction these days.
He admits the challenge is different than when Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili were playing for championships year in and year out.
“Now it’s back to the drawing board, doing drills high school teams are doing,” Popovich said. “How to set a pick, how to roll, how to pivot. Those are things we do every day when we have a shootaround. It’s like a clinic.”
On these days, Popovich is still able to look past the team’s woeful record and zero in on the trees for the forest.
“You have to criticize,” Popovich said. “You have to point out errors. You have to have standards and they have to understand you care enough to point it out. At the same time, you understand it is going to take a while for habits to be formed.”
In the meantime, Popovich would be wise to recall some of the best advice Clifford ever received about coaching a team out of the NBA basement.
That advice came from Popovich himself.
“You’re not going to be able to worry about wins,” Clifford said. “Just help them play better.”