Pop’s Film Study
It’s not always about the Xs and Os.
Gregg Popovich is what you call a master strategist.
When he was the San Antonio Spurs’ head coach, he was constantly scheming to maximize his team’s potential.
He would put them through the wringer to test their mental and physical toughness.
For example, there’s a story former Spurs’ point guard Dejountey Murray told on All the Smoke about how he was constantly put in and pulled out of the G-League in his rookie season to test his resilience.
“They playing these mind games to see if they could break me not knowing they can’t break me. They want you to break yourself, you know what I’m saying? They doing that though -I’m at home tripping.”
Popovich is also meticulous with his film studies.
He expects all of his players to pay attention and understand what’s going on. He wants them to know what they did correctly in the play and what they did wrong.
For example, former Spurs’ wing Danny Green told a story about how Popovich made the team spend a day watching film after a Finals loss because he wanted to change one thing about their game plan.
“It’s hard to watch, but that film session the following year, ‘cause Pop always does every following year -he watches the previous [year]. And we had the same group together for a long time. So, he watched the series or the last game. He was rewinding and rewinding.”
After hearing all of these stories, you’d think Popovich is this super intense and analytical Xs and Os guy.
Well, apparently he’s not.
On an episode of Run Your Race, DeMar Derozan, who played for Pop and the Spurs from 2018-21, told a story about how one of Popovich’s film sessions was just an, essentially, study about animals.
“I remember -I think we had lost a couple of games in a row,” Derozan told host Theo Pinson. “I remember him going off and said, ‘You know what? Fuck it! We going to watch film tomorrow. We going to watch film. We got to discuss this. See y’all tomorrow.’”
He continues, “So, we come in the next day, we go into film room -Pop kinda always the last to walk in there. So, everybody sitting there, like everybody got their jersey on, like we about to watch film then we going to go practice. The lights go off. Like, ‘What the fuck?’ I see penguins. Like, ‘What the fuck is this the Discovery Channel or something?’ We watch a whole movie about how penguins go hunting for food, how the males take care of the egg -basically, how penguins work together as a team for X amount of months together to survive the uh -it was the craziest shit, bro. We watched the whole fucking movie about [penguins].”
Derozan went on to say that instead of practicing after the movie, Pop had them watch another movie about a man living with a chicken. And after the film concluded, Pop just stood up and said, “See y’all tomorrow. Game day” and left.
Pinson then asked Derozan what he learned from the film study and he said that the team learned about “togetherness” and how they need it to survive.
Surprisingly, the session worked. The Spurs won 48 games that season and nearly took out the second-seeded Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs.
Popovich is always challenging his players to be better.
And sometimes to do this, he uses unorthodox methods, such as having his players apply the survival tactics of a penguin to their on-court performance.
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