Hip hop Pop trying to tune in with his roster
Team’s generation gap has never been wider
Gregg Popovich gave it an honest try. He really did.
On a recent afternoon at the Spurs’ practice facility, Popovich overheard 22-yearold guard Lonnie Walker IV raving about some of his favorite music.
Naturally inquisitive, and always in search of ways to relate to kids these days, Popovich wandered over to engage.
And that is how the 71-yearold Spurs coach found himself engulfed in a passionate but confusing conversation regarding a rap artist called Lil Baby.
“He was like, ‘Rapper’s name is Lil?’ ” Walker recalled, laughing. “I was like, ‘Ah, you know what Pop? Just forget it.’ ”
That probably turned out for the best.
If Popovich did delve further into the Lil Baby catalog, he might find song titles that would make Redd Foxx blush. And then he would have to explain to his players who was Redd Foxx.
As the oldest coach in NBA history, now at the helm of the youngest roster of his 25season career, Popovich has come to grips with the fact he will never agree with many of his players’ musical tastes.
“The only ones I listen to are the ones you can dance to,” Popovich said. “If you can’t dance to it, then it’s not good.”
Popovich has always been a coach who values personal connection with and between his players. He has long believed a team that understands and enjoys each other off the court will find a greater chemistry on it.
Given the callow makeup of
the Spurs team that opened the 2020-21 season with a 131-119 victory in Memphis on Wednesday, that could prove to be an interesting challenge for Popovich now.
The Spurs’ average age to start the campaign is 25.6 years. Seven Spurs players were not yet born on Dec. 10, 1996, the date Popovich led his first game as the Spurs’ head coach.
The Spurs are not babies by NBA standards. There were 15 teams younger to open the season this week, the most youthful being the Minnesota Timberwolves (23.6 years).
By Popovichian measures, however, this year’s Spurs locker room is practically a preschool.
Once upon a time, in the title-winning heyday of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, Popovich would aptly refer to his team as “older than dirt.”
As the old guard has retired, leaving their jerseys in the overcrowded rafters of the AT&T Center, the Spurs have begun to trend younger.
As recently as 2016-17, the season after Duncan retired at age 40, the Spurs owned the second-oldest roster in the NBA at 28.9 years.
Wednesday in Memphis, the Spurs started two players — Walker and Johnson — who were not alive when Duncan made his NBA debut in 1997. Meanwhile, Devin Vassell, the Spurs’ first-round draft choice last month, became the first player in team history born in 2000 to log minutes on opening night.
Popovich said he has enjoyed getting to know the youngest players on his team, a process that began in the forced confines of the NBA’S Orlando, Fla., bubble last summer.
“Just like it was then, it’s a lot of fun,” Popovich said. “They’re very energetic, very anxious to learn and a lot of fun to be around.”
Only three other coaches in league history have coached past their 70th birthday: Hubie Brown, Larry Brown and Bill Bertka.
Hubie Brown was formerly the oldest coach in league annals, retiring from the Memphis Grizzlies at 71 years and 69 days old. Popovich passed that milestone last April. He will turn 72 in January.
It helps the Spurs still have a few 30-somethings around to serve as a gobetween between Popovich and his merry band of millennials.
The Spurs’ oldest player is Lamarcus Aldridge, 35.
Patty Mills, 32, has been in San Antonio the longest, having joined the team in March 2011.
Rudy Gay, 34, and DeMar Derozan, 31, are also experienced NBA hands who can communicate what Popovich wants to the younger set.
“We’re like the gateway between both of them,” Gay said. “He leans on us, because we’re kind of in between his way of thinking and the younger guys’ way of thinking.”
The bridge across the Spurs’ generational divide runs both ways.
While Popovich is at least willing to entertain
conversations about the merits of Lil Baby, his younger players are open to their coach’s recommendations as well.
“I feel like he’s pretty in tune,” said 21-year-old swingman Keldon Johnson. “He’s always listening. Anything we say, he picks up on.”
Practice days are good for this kind of exchange, with players and staff members taking turns choosing the soundtrack for the day.
“We get our turn to infect the rest of the group,” Popovich said.
For Popovich, that might mean blasting hits by Elvis
Presley or the Beatles. Once, the coach chose music by Austrian composer Franz Schubert to celebrate center Jakob Poeltl’s birthday.
Johnson said he appreciates Popovich’s openmindedness on days it is time for the players to take control of the team playlist.
“He’s very hip,” Johnson said. “He’s open to new ideas and new music. Not saying he’s going to like it, but he’s open to it.”
In return, players have been receptive to Popovich’s suggestions as well.
Walker said he has a stack of “about 10 books” Popovich has slipped him to read since the start of training camp, among them Barack Obama’s latest memoir and one titled “Caste: Origins of Our Discontent” by Isabel Wilkerson.
“I’m kind of having like baby anxiety with it,” Walker said. “I’m trying to pick the right one to start off with.”
Try as they might, there are some generational gaps Popovich’s youngest charges will never close with their coach.
Lil Baby is one of them. Social media is another.
In recent weeks, and mostly as a joke, Walker has spearheaded a campaign to convince Popovich to open a Twitter account.
Walker understands this is an impossible fight.
“He has no taste for it,” Walker said. “He doesn’t like the nonsense and doesn’t want to hear people’s B.S.”
That might be the clearest sign yet Popovich and his youngest players understand each other.
“He has no shot to get me on Twitter,” Popovich said. “That’s not going to work.”
Walker and his cohorts should not lose hope, however.
There’s always Tik Tok.