May 2, 2025 • 11 mins
Mitch Johnson officially named head coach of the Spurs.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I know, meeting Spurs fans and sports fans in San
Antonio today were a little shocked, I guess, or relieved
or Okay, I knew this was coming, whatever it was.
When we got the word that Pop was retiring, and
as Michael mentioned, about ten minutes after the release went
out that he was retiring, the release came out that
Mitch Johnson would succeed him, and as they said, terms
(00:27):
were not released, but I'm sure he got whatever the
standard deal is for coaches, and it's three to five years,
all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
One of the.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Things, and I'm not suggesting this, but one of the
things that we've learned with the value of franchises and
the billions of dollars that are being spent, owners these
days don't wait around very long if they don't like
the direction their team is going. But I'm going to
defend Mitch Johnson here on a couple of fronts.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
And the first front is.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
This, any time that you are the interim of anything,
it's not your show. You are filling in for somebody else.
I filled in for Mike Taylor a whole bunch when
Mike was here years ago. I filled in for Chris
Nowel when he died the morning show on this station
for a lot of times, and I did it the
(01:15):
way I wanted to, but it wasn't my show. It
was his show, and I made sure that it was
acknowledged as such each time. When you are filling the
chair for not only anyone that's you're superior, but has
the track record of Pop, I do think that there
are times when you're sitting there with the cards in
(01:36):
your hand, or trying to figure out a play to
call or a rotation to have. What would Pop do here?
I think that's human nature for you to do that.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
It's not that I need to give him or anybody
else advice. But when the title of interim is taken
away and it's your show to do, whether it's a
radio show, or you become the CEO of a Fortune
five hundred company, or you become the coach of a
basketball team, now you get to make decisions clear and freely,
(02:06):
and then you have to live with them. And people
would say, well, I didn't like his rotations at times
this year, or how could you only win thirty four
games with this roster? Well understand that thirty two of
those games he didn't have wimby thirty six, and there
was some games before then that when he was on
when we.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Was resting too, that he didn't play.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So as we go into the twenty five to twenty
six season, number one, he has a clean slate, and
it's his ship from day one. It's his training camp,
it's his game plan, it's his roster, it's his idea
of rotations, and they're always in November and December, October, November.
You're tinkering with lineups to see which one's the best,
(02:47):
who comes off the bench the best. You know that
there's probably three or four guys that are definitely bench players,
and you know there's three or four guys that are
definitely starters, and you're trying to figure out and the
fourth and the fifth become a bench player, starter and
vice so and all of those things are are are
now going to be under his control. Now I'm going
to take you back in a time machine a little bit,
(03:08):
and I think the year was two thousand and eight.
Pat Riley steps down as head coach of Miami, and
there were plenty of coaches that pat Riley could have
hired to run the Miami Heat as there are now
that the Spurts could have chosen, and a lot of
people are like, what's wrong with Mike bud What about
Becky Hammond? What about Michael Malone? Michael Malone? What about
(03:30):
Taylor Jenkins? The list and the and there'll be more
that probably end up getting fired here soon too. Well,
my thought is is if you thought that when when
the decision was made in November for Mitch Johnson to
be the the interim coach instead of.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Matt Neilson, no Brown Brown, Well, Bret Brown didn't want that.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
He didn't want it.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Let's say, but let's say that you know you had
a let's say it was something that you knew was
going to be short term. You know, a death in
the family. So and so is coaching tonight, or you
know he's not feeling well, he has the flu, or
he had COVID or something like that, and it was
going to be a two or three games game deal
that a Brett Brown or anybody else could have had
that role because he's coming back in a few days.
(04:19):
When you have a medical issue like he had, you
know it's long term. We didn't know it's going to
be this long of a term. But we know it's
going to be long term, so you start to groom
the guy that you think should be your next head coach. Now,
Eric Spolstra, Lebron wanted him fired, and pat Riley said,
go play basketball and listen to your coach or I'll
get rid of you. And I'm sure there are other
(04:40):
players that had their issues with Eric Spolstra. But if
you had to rank the best coaches in the NBA,
I don't care what ranking system you're going with, Eric
Spoulster would be in the top five for anybody, and
most most people's ballots would be in the top one,
two or three of current coaches. Now, he may not
get the coach for seventeen seasons, but who's to say
(05:03):
that that Mitch Johnson can't be the next Eric Spoulser.
Very true, you know, very true. He's definitely right now.
He is at least set up.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
He's in a good position a lah the way Eric
Spolster was set up taking over in Miami.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
He has Wemby and he's coached Wemby now for two years.
He has Chris Paul. If Chris decides to come back
and they want to bring him back, maybe even as
a possible assistant, and Chris has already said, you know,
I think Chris wants to play. I think Chris is
going to play. Chris is Tom Brady. He's going to
play till they rip the ball out of his cold
dead hands. He is not given that basketball up. He
(05:42):
is a Hooper for life, and he is an amazing talent.
And more than that, his longevity is to be able
to be able to play eighty two games at forty
years old is not what most people can do. Suck
it up, Joel, but most of the players on the
team of publicly said, if Pop's not coming back, we
want Mitch Johnson.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
We think he's a good coach.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Now, I'm not going to throw in the Giannis or
the Cooper flag scenario that I talked about yesterday, but
just look at the current roster of the Spurs have.
If they don't make any changes, and they have you know,
Chris Paul is a backup, and they have Caldon Johnson
is a backup, and they have a starting lineup of
the year in Fox and Vasel and Wimby and a
(06:26):
center that they draft and Harrison Barnes if he's a starter, and.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
You've got the in Castle.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
You've got the makings of about eight or nine really
really good players that are on the verge of next
year being this year's Houston or this year's Detroit to
a team that's ready to be in the playoffs and
ready to start learning how to win playoff games. What's
the goal next year for the Spurs. Well, there's only
one goal. That's to win the championship. We always know that.
(06:52):
But the smaller step goal is to make the playoffs.
And if this team can go from twenty two to
thirty four to say forty seven forty eight wins next
year and get in the playoffs and not in the
playing game, you can be six or better.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
That's a win for Mitt Johnson.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
And if they are able to add pieces either via
trade or free agency that are really star players and
star star type players, superstar star type players. If they
trade for Giannis, if they get Cooper Flag in the draft,
if they get an impact player in the draft, all
of those things now become give him even more opportunity
(07:30):
to be successful. When you turn when you're deciding who
you're going to put in the game, and you look
at the bench and you've got three options and there
are no bad options. That makes you a really good coach.
So we're gonna find out pretty quickly how Mitch Johnson
handles his team. And I would not be I know
that Michael Malone makes a lot of people like I
know Taylor Jenkins, who is from the pop pedigree, is
(07:52):
somebody that they like. And Mike Budd was here for
some of the championship years early on. And there's a
lot of great candidates out there. But who's to say
that Mitt Johnson isn't one of them as well? And
I'll go back and people say, well, he didn't win
enough games this year. How many times do you win
when your star players are hurt and your team is
not very good. It's all about chemistry. It's all about
(08:13):
the camaraderie of your players, and it's about them learning
how to play together. This is still one of the
youngest teams in the league. It could get older with acquisitions,
it could get more experience, which I think is necessary,
but a the and when all this is done by
this time next year, we're going to have a way
better idea of how good of a coach Mitch Johnson
is or isn't based on what this team does next
(08:34):
year as long as it stays healthy. If the team
loses half of its roster to injuries, it doesn't matter
who coaches. You could pick any of those guys that
we mentioned or any coach's currently coaching, and you're not
going to win with a bad roster or an injured roster.
And that's what it's going to come down to, starting
with training camp in late September early October.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, the unfortunate thing with last year with Mitch was
like how you mentioned, is in the back of his head.
It was a very untraditional, you know, interim title, because
usually when it's an interim head coach of whatever it is, football, baseball, basketball,
it's because they have moved on or they have you know,
(09:16):
fired or let go of the actual head coach. In
this particular situation, you know, like you said, was Mitch
in the back of his head thinking, well, Pop's still
in charge. I'm just kind of holding the ship right now.
What would Pop do? And now it's hey, there's no
looking over his shoulder. It's I'm gonna have to worry
(09:37):
about it. It's it's his way or the highway.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
It's his team.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
It's no longer a Pop's team, Pops stamp is on there,
Pop's footprint is there. It's still a he's part of
the Popovich tree. But Taylor Jenkins when he was coaching
in Memphis, wasn't going through his rotations going I wonder
what Pap wa do here? Maybe maybe it was in
the back of his mind, but what But if I
don't do what Pop would do, I'm gonna not be here.
It's a different animal when you are filling in for somebody,
(10:04):
they'll when you are doing.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
It yourself and it's your deal.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
That's the difference of the interim part for this, for
this particular situation with Mitch whereas like now with the
Memphis Grizzlies, who have actually hired their interim head coach
to be their new head coach. He didn't have to
sit there and think, Hey, if I make a mistake
as Michael Malone or yeah it's Michael, No, it's Taylor Jenkins,
gonna sit here and call me. He was gone, yeah,
(10:29):
because he was gone. He had nothing to do with
the organization anymore.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
So you had a coach that you didn't know his status,
and you were always trying to put yourself in his shoes.
Now he can stay in his own and I think
he'll I think he'll be just fine with that. All right,
we're gonna talk more pop stuff coming up in the
five o'clock hour. We'll get into the NBA games last
night and the games this evening. The NCAA has another
(10:54):
of another gambling story to share with you, and the
Boys of the Desert may have finally gotten something I'm wrong.
We'll talk about that next. It's the Andy Everette Show
on the ticket
I know, meeting Spurs fans and sports fans in San
Antonio today were a little shocked, I guess, or relieved
or Okay, I knew this was coming, whatever it was.
When we got the word that Pop was retiring, and
as Michael mentioned, about ten minutes after the release went
out that he was retiring, the release came out that
Mitch Johnson would succeed him, and as they said, terms
(00:27):
were not released, but I'm sure he got whatever the
standard deal is for coaches, and it's three to five years,
all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
One of the.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Things, and I'm not suggesting this, but one of the
things that we've learned with the value of franchises and
the billions of dollars that are being spent, owners these
days don't wait around very long if they don't like
the direction their team is going. But I'm going to
defend Mitch Johnson here on a couple of fronts.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
And the first front is.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
This, any time that you are the interim of anything,
it's not your show. You are filling in for somebody else.
I filled in for Mike Taylor a whole bunch when
Mike was here years ago. I filled in for Chris
Nowel when he died the morning show on this station
for a lot of times, and I did it the
(01:15):
way I wanted to, but it wasn't my show. It
was his show, and I made sure that it was
acknowledged as such each time. When you are filling the
chair for not only anyone that's you're superior, but has
the track record of Pop, I do think that there
are times when you're sitting there with the cards in
(01:36):
your hand, or trying to figure out a play to
call or a rotation to have. What would Pop do here?
I think that's human nature for you to do that.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
It's not that I need to give him or anybody
else advice. But when the title of interim is taken
away and it's your show to do, whether it's a
radio show, or you become the CEO of a Fortune
five hundred company, or you become the coach of a
basketball team, now you get to make decisions clear and freely,
(02:06):
and then you have to live with them. And people
would say, well, I didn't like his rotations at times
this year, or how could you only win thirty four
games with this roster? Well understand that thirty two of
those games he didn't have wimby thirty six, and there
was some games before then that when he was on
when we.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Was resting too, that he didn't play.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So as we go into the twenty five to twenty
six season, number one, he has a clean slate, and
it's his ship from day one. It's his training camp,
it's his game plan, it's his roster, it's his idea
of rotations, and they're always in November and December, October, November.
You're tinkering with lineups to see which one's the best,
(02:47):
who comes off the bench the best. You know that
there's probably three or four guys that are definitely bench players,
and you know there's three or four guys that are
definitely starters, and you're trying to figure out and the
fourth and the fifth become a bench player, starter and
vice so and all of those things are are are
now going to be under his control. Now I'm going
to take you back in a time machine a little bit,
(03:08):
and I think the year was two thousand and eight.
Pat Riley steps down as head coach of Miami, and
there were plenty of coaches that pat Riley could have
hired to run the Miami Heat as there are now
that the Spurts could have chosen, and a lot of
people are like, what's wrong with Mike bud What about
Becky Hammond? What about Michael Malone? Michael Malone? What about
(03:30):
Taylor Jenkins? The list and the and there'll be more
that probably end up getting fired here soon too. Well,
my thought is is if you thought that when when
the decision was made in November for Mitch Johnson to
be the the interim coach instead of.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Matt Neilson, no Brown Brown, Well, Bret Brown didn't want that.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
He didn't want it.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Let's say, but let's say that you know you had
a let's say it was something that you knew was
going to be short term. You know, a death in
the family. So and so is coaching tonight, or you
know he's not feeling well, he has the flu, or
he had COVID or something like that, and it was
going to be a two or three games game deal
that a Brett Brown or anybody else could have had
that role because he's coming back in a few days.
(04:19):
When you have a medical issue like he had, you
know it's long term. We didn't know it's going to
be this long of a term. But we know it's
going to be long term, so you start to groom
the guy that you think should be your next head coach. Now,
Eric Spolstra, Lebron wanted him fired, and pat Riley said,
go play basketball and listen to your coach or I'll
get rid of you. And I'm sure there are other
(04:40):
players that had their issues with Eric Spolstra. But if
you had to rank the best coaches in the NBA,
I don't care what ranking system you're going with, Eric
Spoulster would be in the top five for anybody, and
most most people's ballots would be in the top one,
two or three of current coaches. Now, he may not
get the coach for seventeen seasons, but who's to say
(05:03):
that that Mitch Johnson can't be the next Eric Spoulser.
Very true, you know, very true. He's definitely right now.
He is at least set up.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
He's in a good position a lah the way Eric
Spolster was set up taking over in Miami.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
He has Wemby and he's coached Wemby now for two years.
He has Chris Paul. If Chris decides to come back
and they want to bring him back, maybe even as
a possible assistant, and Chris has already said, you know,
I think Chris wants to play. I think Chris is
going to play. Chris is Tom Brady. He's going to
play till they rip the ball out of his cold
dead hands. He is not given that basketball up. He
(05:42):
is a Hooper for life, and he is an amazing talent.
And more than that, his longevity is to be able
to be able to play eighty two games at forty
years old is not what most people can do. Suck
it up, Joel, but most of the players on the
team of publicly said, if Pop's not coming back, we
want Mitch Johnson.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
We think he's a good coach.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Now, I'm not going to throw in the Giannis or
the Cooper flag scenario that I talked about yesterday, but
just look at the current roster of the Spurs have.
If they don't make any changes, and they have you know,
Chris Paul is a backup, and they have Caldon Johnson
is a backup, and they have a starting lineup of
the year in Fox and Vasel and Wimby and a
(06:26):
center that they draft and Harrison Barnes if he's a starter, and.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
You've got the in Castle.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
You've got the makings of about eight or nine really
really good players that are on the verge of next
year being this year's Houston or this year's Detroit to
a team that's ready to be in the playoffs and
ready to start learning how to win playoff games. What's
the goal next year for the Spurs. Well, there's only
one goal. That's to win the championship. We always know that.
(06:52):
But the smaller step goal is to make the playoffs.
And if this team can go from twenty two to
thirty four to say forty seven forty eight wins next
year and get in the playoffs and not in the
playing game, you can be six or better.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
That's a win for Mitt Johnson.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
And if they are able to add pieces either via
trade or free agency that are really star players and
star star type players, superstar star type players. If they
trade for Giannis, if they get Cooper Flag in the draft,
if they get an impact player in the draft, all
of those things now become give him even more opportunity
(07:30):
to be successful. When you turn when you're deciding who
you're going to put in the game, and you look
at the bench and you've got three options and there
are no bad options. That makes you a really good coach.
So we're gonna find out pretty quickly how Mitch Johnson
handles his team. And I would not be I know
that Michael Malone makes a lot of people like I
know Taylor Jenkins, who is from the pop pedigree, is
(07:52):
somebody that they like. And Mike Budd was here for
some of the championship years early on. And there's a
lot of great candidates out there. But who's to say
that Mitt Johnson isn't one of them as well? And
I'll go back and people say, well, he didn't win
enough games this year. How many times do you win
when your star players are hurt and your team is
not very good. It's all about chemistry. It's all about
(08:13):
the camaraderie of your players, and it's about them learning
how to play together. This is still one of the
youngest teams in the league. It could get older with acquisitions,
it could get more experience, which I think is necessary,
but a the and when all this is done by
this time next year, we're going to have a way
better idea of how good of a coach Mitch Johnson
is or isn't based on what this team does next
(08:34):
year as long as it stays healthy. If the team
loses half of its roster to injuries, it doesn't matter
who coaches. You could pick any of those guys that
we mentioned or any coach's currently coaching, and you're not
going to win with a bad roster or an injured roster.
And that's what it's going to come down to, starting
with training camp in late September early October.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, the unfortunate thing with last year with Mitch was
like how you mentioned, is in the back of his head.
It was a very untraditional, you know, interim title, because
usually when it's an interim head coach of whatever it is, football, baseball, basketball,
it's because they have moved on or they have you know,
(09:16):
fired or let go of the actual head coach. In
this particular situation, you know, like you said, was Mitch
in the back of his head thinking, well, Pop's still
in charge. I'm just kind of holding the ship right now.
What would Pop do? And now it's hey, there's no
looking over his shoulder. It's I'm gonna have to worry
(09:37):
about it. It's it's his way or the highway.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
It's his team.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
It's no longer a Pop's team, Pops stamp is on there,
Pop's footprint is there. It's still a he's part of
the Popovich tree. But Taylor Jenkins when he was coaching
in Memphis, wasn't going through his rotations going I wonder
what Pap wa do here? Maybe maybe it was in
the back of his mind, but what But if I
don't do what Pop would do, I'm gonna not be here.
It's a different animal when you are filling in for somebody,
(10:04):
they'll when you are doing.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
It yourself and it's your deal.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
That's the difference of the interim part for this, for
this particular situation with Mitch whereas like now with the
Memphis Grizzlies, who have actually hired their interim head coach
to be their new head coach. He didn't have to
sit there and think, Hey, if I make a mistake
as Michael Malone or yeah it's Michael, No, it's Taylor Jenkins,
gonna sit here and call me. He was gone, yeah,
(10:29):
because he was gone. He had nothing to do with
the organization anymore.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
So you had a coach that you didn't know his status,
and you were always trying to put yourself in his shoes.
Now he can stay in his own and I think
he'll I think he'll be just fine with that. All right,
we're gonna talk more pop stuff coming up in the
five o'clock hour. We'll get into the NBA games last
night and the games this evening. The NCAA has another
(10:54):
of another gambling story to share with you, and the
Boys of the Desert may have finally gotten something I'm wrong.
We'll talk about that next. It's the Andy Everette Show
on the ticket
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