Spurs v Warriors Recap: The Church of Popovich
Last night the Spurs defeated the Golden State Warriors in a clinical and devastating return to form. They smothered the offense of arguably the league’s best backcourt and ran roughshod over the league’s best defense. Still without three key contributors, the Spurs’ offense clicked in the plug-and-play mold we’ve come to expect, as role players jumped in to fill the gaps in the roster. Cory Joseph’s jumper was suddenly cash. Aron Baynes was flinging his body around to violent (and occasionally comedic) effect. And oh, hey, there was Kyle Anderson. (And oh, there went Kyle Anderson, in the quickest first quarter sub-in/sub-out in Spurs history.)
The Spurs sent a clear message with their second consecutive road win against a team with sincere title aspirations. Tim Duncan hit yet another career milestone (14,000 rebounds) and inched toward another (25,000 points). Kawhi Leonard picked up where he left off on Monday night, forcing turnovers and executing with precision the sudden rush of plays called for him. But while last night’s game was certainly exciting – perhaps the most “Spursy” victory this season – it was also somewhat unexpected. Gregg Popovich had already elected to sit his stars once in this young season, and with the Spurs on the second night of a back to back, Popovich named several of his key players as “questionable” Tuesday morning. And though no definitive statements had been issued, the Rest Debate™ quickly picked up where it left off after the Spurs/Rockets game last week.
I don’t intend to beat a dead horse. The Spurs are who they are, and Popovich sitting players is not surprising to anyone, detractors and defenders alike. But as more owners and players are supporting the Spurs’ strategy, the rest debate has shifted into something slightly different. Where it was once an annoyance to people invested in covering the NBA, it now represents a grave threat to the NBA’s sustainability. The Spurs, the argument goes, don’t just hurt the fans purchasing tickets or tuning in for the games. They hurt the NBA’s financial viability, damaging the product, and in the process, they drag down the other 29 teams in the league, unfairly impacting playoff seeding and team records. By harming the fans, the league, and hell, basketball, the Spurs’ rest strategy simply cannot be tolerated.
The inimitable Bethlehem Shoals articulated this as best I’ve seen in his piece yesterday at GQ:
When the Spurs don’t show up, it tampers with the basic law of sports: That both teams will play hard and produce a meaningful outcome. The outcome will be entered into the record, which will in turn paint a complete picture of the regular season. That picture will be used to determine which teams will make the playoffs and who they will play against.
Shoals continues, “the Spurs destabilize the entire NBA. They become a randomizing force, letting their personal schedule dictate the way the season plays out.”
Some of his criticism is fair. There’s no denying the Spurs’ relentless commitment to winning makes it easier for them to ignore the desires of some viewers or the league. This is certainly true, and nobody in the front office seems to express difficulty wrestling with the rest decision, though Popovich has acknowledged the impact it can have on fans.
These are legitimate critiques of the Spurs’ strategy, and in the most unforgiving of lights, it’s easy to see heartless calculations behind Popovich’s decision (and the front office’s support) of resting his stars. But at the macro level, it’s difficult to find support for the argument that the Spurs are damaging the NBA’s ability to field a great product.
For starters, a rush to decry Popvich’s choice to rest his stars so early in the season betrays a lack of perspective. The Spurs aren’t just resting for this year’s playoffs. They’re recovering from last year’s, too, finding ways to overcome their shortest summer off since 2007, while also shaking off a championship hangover to face an opponent’s best shot on any given night. There are several targets on their backs, all invited and earned, but the Spurs only care about their own: securing the elusive repeat.
There’s simply too much to support the Spurs’ strategy to find it anything more than annoying. Yes, resting negatively impacts the quality of an NBA game, but everyone – fans, owners, coaches, players, everyone – knows that the highest possible quality you can extract from any NBA game comes in the emotional pressure cooker of the playoffs. There are reasons to groan about a game in November not living up to expectations, but any fan would just as soon punt those games if it meant getting to see what they did in June.
The unfathomable enormity of the recent TV deal the NBA signed would suggest that the average fan agrees. The Spurs have been doing this for years, playing deep into seasons, and the NBA has grown. There’s very little to support the notion that the Spurs have damaged the league’s financial viability, and after two of the more exciting Finals in recent memory, there’s actually evidence to suggest the opposite. The Spurs play efficient, aesthetically beautiful basketball, and now everybody wants a piece. Teams are restructuring to replicate their success, snatching people left and right off the Spurs’ front office tree.
But beyond all that, there’s just something unpleasant about drumming up indignation at a small market team sticking it to a billion dollar international conglomerate by doing its best to preserve its players. Yes, the Spurs have a responsibility to support the league that welcomes them. And they take this responsibility very seriously, for years standing alone as the league’s model franchise. They champion diversity in the NBA, both on their roster and their coaching staff, and they’ve given every other small market team in the league something to aspire to. I’m not suggesting NBA anti-federalism, but blind adherence to a “league above all” mandate will land you in an uncomfortable position, advocating that the interests of the weak conform to the demands of the strong.
Shoals closes with a variation of the current favorite Spurs trope, shadowing them in the darkness of corporate greed. “The truth is, the Spurs have never really been the league’s moral compass. The Right Way to do basketball was never about saving the world — it was about saving themselves. We were never right to view them as some kind of hardwood mega-church.”
As any religious person will tell you, it’s the people that matter most. (Full disclosure: I work full time at a church. Take from that what you will.) Not the structure. Not the places of power. Not the perception of its adherents. These things represent concerns, to be sure, but they’re not the chief aim of a religious organization. So it shouldn’t be surprising then that in many ways, the Spurs have become the league’s mega-church. Where some would couch the myth of NBA brotherhood in thunderous sermon rhetoric – or worse, preach the supremacy of brand management – the Spurs exist as a monastery of disciplined adherents focused solely on their mission, willing to reconsider collective wisdom and regularly forgoing the fleshly pleasures of NBA excess in pursuit of basketball nirvana. In the church of Popovich, everything is in service to the players and their followers.
Last night, Warriors coach (and former Spur) Steve Kerr watched as San Antonio quietly dismantled one of the young season’s biggest success stories. Stephen Curry’s 75-game three-pointer streak came to an unceremonious end. The Warriors’ coaching staff thought Andrew Bogut fouled out. Andre Iguodala’s spirit left his body before our eyes. After the game, Kerr could only shake his head in disbelief. “I retired twelve years ago and the same three top players and the same coach are over there. It’s insane.”
Today, the rest of the league has moved past simply paying respects and into blatant attempts at replication. After a decade and a half of unprecedented growth, the converted are filling front offices around the league. For the faithful, this is unsurprising. It was more than a decade ago when Popovich, faced with a decision to play an ailing Tim Duncan in a bid at a title repeat, chose to defy conventional logic and maintain a focus on sustainable excellence by sitting his star. Last year’s title might not have been possible without that decision. And if the Spurs are going to repeat this year, there’s no reason for them to suddenly take their eye off the long game. Next time you see the Spurs stars resting on a bench during tipoff, remember: Every revival starts with a rebellion.
