1: That was all writer Neil Paine could think of to say.
Neil’s a numbers guy. He had formulated an algorithm to determine who was the best NBA coach ever, analyzing “player performance metrics to predict how many games a team should win,” Daniel Coyle writes in The Culture Code.
“The vast majority of NBA coaches win roughly the number of games they should win, given their players’ abilities,” Daniel notes.
With one giant exception.
Gregg Popovich. Also known as “Pop”. Head coach of the San Antonio Spurs.
Pop’s teams have won 117 games more than they should have. Double that of the next-best coach.
What?!? How is that even possible?
That’s the question.
“The evidence is in plain view on the court,” Daniel writes. “The Spurs consistently perform the thousand little unselfish behaviors—the extra pass, the alert defense, the tireless hustle—that puts the team’s interest above their own.”
“Selfless,” the great LeBron James has said about the Spurs. “Guys move, cut, pass, you’ve got a shot, you take it. But it’s all for the team and it’s never about the individual.”
So, how does Pop get his teams to play so unselfishly?
It’s not his disposition. Daniel notes that Pop has been compared to “a dyspeptic bulldog.” His temper has been described as “volcanic.”
And much of his anger is directed at his star players. “Some of his more memorable eruptions are collected on YouTube, under titles such as ‘Popovich Yells and Destroys Thiago Splitter,’ ‘Popovich Tells Danny Green to Shut the F— Up,’ and ‘Popovich Furious at Tony Parker,'” Daniel notes.
2: How exactly does “a cranky, demanding coach create the most cohesive team in all sports?” Daniel asks.
Answer: Relationships.
Pop may get angry. But he’s also really, really good at relationships.
Exhibit One: It’s April 4, 2014. The mood at the San Antonio Spurs practice facility is “tense,” Daniel writes.
The prior night was one of the most important regular-season games. And the Spurs had lost 106–94 to their archrival, the Oklahoma City Thunder.
However, the “L” in the loss column was not the real problem. It was the way it occurred.
“The team had imploded in a blizzard of misses and turnovers, including several by guard Marco Belinelli,” Daniel writes.
Gregg Popovich walks onto the court. “He’s wearing a misshapen T-shirt from Jordan’s Snack Bar in Ellsworth, Maine, and shorts a couple sizes too big,” Daniel observes. “His hair is spare and frizzy, and he is carrying a paper plate with fruit and a plastic fork, his face set in a lopsided grin.”
He looks more like “a disheveled uncle at a picnic” than “a commanding general,” Daniel notes.
After setting down his plate, he moves around the gym, interacting with his players. When he connects with a player, he moves in close, “tight enough that their noses nearly touch,” Daniel writes. “It’s almost like a challenge—an intimacy contest.” Pop keeps connecting as he moves around the gym.
“He touches them on the elbow, the shoulder, the arm,” Daniel writes, “He laughs. His eyes are bright, knowing, active.”
When Pop reaches Marco Belinelli, his smile grows even bigger. When Marco jokes back, the two men engage in a brief mock wrestling match.
“It is a strange sight,” Daniel writes, “A white-haired sixty-five-year-old coach wrestling a curly-haired six-foot-five Italian.”
“I’m sure that was thought about beforehand,” says R. C. Buford, the Spurs’ general manager, who has worked with Popovich for twenty years. “He wanted to make sure Belinelli was okay. That’s the way Pop approaches every relationship. He fills their cups.”
“Hug ’em and hold ’em” is what Gregg tells his assistant coaches. “We gotta hug ’em and hold ’em.”
“A lot of coaches can yell or be nice, but what Pop does is different,” says assistant coach Chip Engelland. “He delivers two things over and over: He’ll tell you the truth, with no bullshit, and then he’ll love you to death.”
3: Exhibit two. Before selecting future Spurs superstar Tim Duncan with the first pick in the 1997 draft, Pop traveled to Tim’s home in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.
They spent four days traveling around the island, hanging out with Tim’s family and friends, and swimming in the ocean. Talking about every possible topic. Except basketball.
“This is not a normal thing for coaches and players to do,” Daniel observes. “Most coaches and players interact in short, highly calculated bursts. But Popovich wanted to connect, to dig in and see if Duncan was the kind of person who was tough, unselfish, and humble enough to build a team around.”
In time, Tim and Pop would build “a father-son relationship, a high-trust, no-bullshit connection that provides a vivid model for other players, especially when it comes to absorbing Popovich’s high-volume truth-telling.
“As more than one Spur put it, If Tim can take Pop’s coaching, how can I not take it?”
More tomorrow.
____________________
Reflection: Is there a lesson I can take from Gregg Popovich’s approach to coaching?
Action: Journal about my reflection above.
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1 Comment
Lots of lessons here. My takeaway is that coaches want nothing more than to see you succeed! It is there success as well. Love this.
Thanks for sharing 🙏