We all attempt to know about Gregg Popovich. The salty genius whose team is always on point regardless of how old they are. It makes me personally want to punch a wall, (can they not just be garbage for one year?) but hey. Hate them or love them they get the job done and you can’t help but marvel at it.
At the head of all of it is Popovich. For nearly 20 years he’s been the mastermind behind all of it, and he knows that the game is constantly evolving. In particular, the importance of the 3-pointer and big men who can shoot. In a rare 30 minute interview, Pop talked about both.
“You pay the price if you don’t make threes, and you pay the price if you don’t get those threes off. One way that big guys are gonna still be valuable is if you have a big guy that demands a double-team. If you have a big guy that you don’t have to double-team? You’re in trouble. But if you got a big guy, he better be somebody who is good enough that he commands a double so it can get kicked, and moved, and you can penetrate or pitch for the threes.
[The three-pointer] is so much more valuable than a two-pointer that you can’t ignore it. So, you try to have a balance between penetrating and [jump-shooting]. But when you penetrate you always think about kicking it to that uncontested three-point guy. So, what we’re doin’ now isn’t gonna change a whole lot across the league because of that three-point line.”
He does have a point. But it’s not something we haven’t hear before really. We all know that the three is highly important, we know that bigs are stepping outside the paint. It’s something that the Spurs had from the start.
