Figuring out how to win ugly in the NBA
Early in the season, when the basketball is at its sloppiest, discovering the ability to trudge through the mud and come out clean on the other end is paramount to success.
San Antonio under Gregg Popovich has long been viewed as a buttoned-up outfit by the public eye — the antithesis of the cocky, flashy, heavily marketed organizations whose fingerprints are all over the massive television contracts the league and its players have come to enjoy. Don’t say or do the thing that gets you in trouble. Just win, and the rest will take care of itself.
So when Jeremy Sochan, after being asked about the Spurs’ longtime rival with a new face, looked into the television cameras at Saturday’s shootaround with a smile, and without hesitation said, “F*** Houston,” the natural instinct from yours truly was to scan for the reaction of a nearby public-relations staffer. But no ceasefire was called, and on the interview went.
The confidence, competitiveness and playfulness that had always existed in San Antonio behind closed doors was now on full display in the form of a 6’8 Polish kid with pink hair, one of the refreshing faces of the Spurs’ youth movement that has yet to do any of that aforementioned winning. And following a 120-109 dragging at the hands of the defending Western Conference champions in Dallas on Thursday, it was fair to wonder if Sochan was writing a check San Antonio wasn’t ready to cash, or if the brashness was indeed warranted.
Turned out it was the latter.
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