Un article de mysa.com sur la relation Parker - Pop. Bel hommage du coach : “Il est l'équivalent de mon Avery Johnson, aujourd'hui. Il peut avoir des idées qui sont meilleures que les miennes. Je peux faire une suggestion et il peut en émettre une autre. Je respecte ça, désormais.”
Spurs' Parker earns his coach's trust with brilliance
05/02/2008 08:31 PM CDT
By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net
NEW ORLEANS — There was a time when Tony Parker brought out the worst in Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.
A teenager trying to learn the NBA game, Parker would make some typical teenage mistake, and Popovich would turn into the Incredible Expletive-Spewing Hulk.
His eyes would bulge, his face would take on the crimson of a Campbell’s soup can, and he would verbally eviscerate Parker as if the young point guard had wrecked the family sedan.
“Sometimes, I wanted to cry,” Parker recalled this week. “I was trying to do my best, and it was never enough.”
As it turns out, there was a method to Popovich’s raving madness.
“He was either going to break, or I was going to have a stallion on my hands,” Popovich said. “And I wanted to find out pretty quickly.”
The results of Parker’s long-ago trial-by-Pop will be on display, again, when the Spurs open the Western Conference semifinals tonight against New Orleans at New Orleans Arena.
The series should provide a significant test for Parker, who will be matched against another rising young point guard star in New Orleans’ Chris Paul.
Once considered a playoff disappointment, Parker — in his seventh season at the ripe age of 25 — has blossomed into a playoff star.
A year after a brilliant 2007 postseason run that culminated in an NBA Finals MVP prize, Parker has picked up where he left off.
He averaged 29.6 points and seven assists in the first round against Phoenix, at times dragging his team by its lapels toward a five-game series victory. Only two players — Kobe Bryant and LeBron James — are scoring at a higher clip this postseason.
“He’s playing with the same kind of confidence he was playing with last year,” Spurs forward Tim Duncan said.
Parker’s best game against the Suns came in a pivotal Game 3 victory, in which he scored a career-high 41 points and equaled a season-high with 12 assists.
He was also instrumental in the Spurs’ decisive triumph in Game 5, in which he scored 31 points — including a pair of jumpers in the final two minutes that helped keep the Suns at bay.
“If it weren’t for Tony,” Robert Horry said, “we’d probably still be playing Phoenix right now.”
Parker’s play has impressed the person whose opinion matters most. Popovich now compares Parker to the only other starting point guard to have led the Spurs to an NBA title.
“He’s basically my Avery (Johnson) now,” Popovich said, and he doesn’t make that evaluation lightly. “He runs the show on the court. He’ll have ideas that are better than mine. I might have a suggestion and he might have a different one. I respect that now.”
Parker has indeed come a long way since he showed up on the Spurs’ doorstep in 2001, a fresh-faced 19-year-old from France. The Spurs were still in fruitless search of their second NBA title, and Popovich wanted to make sure his new charge was up to the responsibility.
“I didn’t let him have any excuses,” Popovich said. “I didn’t want to hear it. If he screwed up, I left him on the floor. I got on his ass.”
Popovich didn’t just throw Parker into the fire.
“He threw fire at him,” Duncan said.
The almost-daily verbal lashings were one thing. What nearly happened to Parker in 2003 might have been worse.
That year, Spurs finally claimed their second title, besting New Jersey in six games, but Parker had struggled mightily. In the offseason, the Spurs made a run at free agent Jason Kidd, the Nets’ perennial All-Star point man.
Had Kidd not opted to remain in New Jersey, Parker might not be here today.
Committed to Parker after Kidd’s rejection, Popovich set to work crafting a point guard.
“Pop saw something special in Tony that I think a lot of people would not have seen,” said Seattle coach P.J. Carlesimo, a Spurs assistant at the time. “He had the guts to put him on the floor and let him make mistakes.”
Steadily, Parker began to learn from those mistakes. He grew into an All-Star himself. More than that, he developed into what Popovich wants most from his point guard — an extension of the coach on the floor.
At last, Popovich had his stallion.
“He was trying to push me and push me to be the best player I can,” Parker said. “Now, it feels so good to be on the same page. I’ve got a lot of freedom, and I feel like I can do whatever I want.”
The two still have their moments, and one came early in Game 5 against Phoenix.
Parker had just committed a silly turnover while driving into too much traffic. At the next dead ball, Popovich waved him over.
The coach gently asked his point guard what had prompted his ill-advised foray into the paint. Parker told him.
Popovich nodded, patted Parker on the rump and sent him back into the game.
And that was that.
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