Alan Truex: Spurs are history, if Pop can’t connect with Kawhi
SAN ANTONIO — This is a small big city, with only one big-time sports team, the Spurs. But for this decade and the one before, they have been enough. The Spurs are a genuine dynasty, one that endured the retirement of one MVP, David Robinson, then another, Tim Duncan, and seamlessly transitional, won five championships.
The Spurs are the most dominant basketball power since the Phil Jackson/Kobe Bryant Lakers. But now the Alamo City is nervous. Spurs on the brink of first-round playoff elimination, while third-generation Franchise Player Kawhi Leonard is in New York, refusing to touch a cellphone for Gregg Popovich, his coach.
As if that isn’t sad enough, this city is mourning the loss of Erin Popovich, who for 40 years was the wife of the coach. She died last week at 67 from what the San Antonio Express reported was “a lengthy battle with respiratory illness.”
Sympathy poured out for Pop, but little has been heard from Kawhi. His sister posted on social media that he doesn’t want to play until he’s 100% healed from a strain of his right quadricep.
Of equal concern is the strain of the locker room. A fissure was revealed by the veteran guards, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, when they hinted at Leonard being a wuss, unwilling to play at less than 100%. The way they and Pop probably see it, a 70% Kawhi is twice as good as his backup.
And they would be right. Leonard was MVP of the 2014 Finals and twice has been Defensive Player of the Year. His basketball skills compare favorably to those of Robinson and Duncan.
But whereas Robinson was an effusive ambassador of the sport, and Duncan was reticent yet invariably polite, Leonard is pleasant but withdrawn – unwilling to share many thoughts with those outside his immediate family.
Which may or may not excuse Pop for this failure to communicate.
Perhaps the coach should not have welcomed the support of the two most vocal players on the team. Something’s wrong with this picture: Tony and Manu in their twilight throwing shade on the torch that Timmy passed to Kawhi, who is only 26. When the past is fighting with the future, it’s usually smart to side with the future.
Even if Kawhi has little personality, Pop should be able to communicate with him as well as any other NBA coach would do. And will do when his $21-milliion-a-year contract expires at the end of next season.
Hey, you’re Gregg Popovich. Nobody knows chemistry like you. You’re the Lavoisier of basketball. When LaMarcus Aldridge pouted because he wasn’t getting the ball, you tweaked the playbook and talked his teammates into giving the big fella the ball. So you can’t work with Kawhi? It’s not like he’s showing up on police blotters or rising menacingly from a lagoon. Why is he such a problem?
Or could it possibly be that Pop is the problem, in decline at 69? Even the Hall of Fame coaches wear down, lose their edge. It happened to Pat Riley. Two or three times.
Who can presume to say what the loss of Erin means to Pop the Coach? She rarely traveled with the team, made no public appearances. But she cooked his meals or picked them up from restaurants, and she took care of his cleaning and what was left of his life while he was giving most of it to his job.
Mrs. Pop was a quiet and beloved support for her driven husband. Main thing is, everywhere she went, people enjoyed her presence.
Pop did not attend the two games at AT&T over the weekend in which the Spurs faced the defending champion, Golden State. Perfectly understandable, but there’s a disturbing metaphor. You can’t help but wonder if his time has passed. As it did for Phil Jackson. Before he knew it.
James Dolan, owner of the New York Knicks, recently fired Jeff Hornaceck for his “old-time coaching.” He thought Hornaceck, 54, was not relating to millennial athletes, that like Jackson “he was way behind on that.”
I hate to quote Dolan as an authority on anything. His team hasn’t won a championship since before the Yugo was a hot-selling car. I’m cringing like I do whenever a U.S. President quotes Mussolini. But I can’t stop wondering if this one time Dolan is onto something: the NBA needs a younger generation of coaches.
The rift with Kawhi is the worst problem Pop has had as Spurs coach. For him it’s been an easy run since 2002, when he gave up general-managing to R.C. Buford and narrowed his own domain to coaching. Buford was Executive of the Year in 2016. But now his roster looks old and depleted — notwithstanding a gallant last hurrah Sunday when the homeboys led all the way. No one needs to calculate the odds on them winning three more in a row.
On the rise, Dejounte Murray, 21, is a 6-5 point guard, the Spurs’ first-round pick in 2016. He’s a potential wheelhouse with Leonard and Aldridge, who has enough left at 32 to be a solid power forward for another year or two.
But of next season’s projected starters, only Leonard and Murray are under 30. So reconnecting with Kawhi is critical. After that? It may be a jump ball.
Maybe he’s so hurt by Parker and Ginobili – and Pop not having his back — that he jumps to the Lakers in 2019, as Byron Scott excitedly predicts. Kawhi grew up in LA, was schooled at San Diego State.
I love my home town (Churchill High School adjoined a cow pasture when I graduated), but I understand it’s not for everyone. It was not a far reach for Charles Barkley to say “San Antonio is boring.” Of course I wouldn’t expect Charles to be interested in 300-year-old buildings and conquistadors and the best Mexican food outside El Paso.
But some celebrities can thrive without constant limelight. They like predictable serenity, paparazzi not chasing them, citizens treating them with quiet respect and deference, appreciating their NBA team in a special close-up personal way the bigger markets do not.
Kawhi strikes me as one who might be happier here than in LA, if he and the coach can just get along. And it’s not like Pop is a grumpy old man, at least when apart from the media horde. He accepts millennials having their say in managerial decisions. Video has shown him huddling with his players and asking them to vote on whether Parker should stay in with three fouls.
But what about chemistry with the fans?
Popovich is an outspoken critic of President Trump, whose slurs against Mexicans are not popular in a metropolis that’s more Hispanic than not. You may call this a sanctuary city, but Trump admirers are too large a niche for any sports team to alienate. No need to Pop off.
The Spurs’ fan base seems to me fairly equal parts white, black and brown. The basketball team is truly the one major force of civic unity, even as much of San Antonio’s blessed charm is fading. The Alamo is not what it used to be. Historical shrine is now a Texas-sized souvenir stand. But the Spurs? Now there was something we could be proud of. There was something that would last.
I’m not so sure anymore.