The San Antonio Spurs are focused on finishing the season strongly. While they don’t have Victor Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox playing due to injuries, the team is doing their best to compete against stronger teams.
Aside from absences to key players, their head coaching gig is another problem they must address. Gregg Popovich has still not returned to the sidelines, and prospects for the beloved tactician making one more run with the team seem to be becoming more impossible by the day.
Multiple names have been tossed around as a possible replacement if Pop decides to hang up his playbook for good. Becky Hammon seems to be a favorite, but one analyst floats the possibility of a former guard with coaching experience under his belt.
Sam Cassell linked to the San Antonio Spurs’ hot seat
Air Alamo’s Desmond Ordonez reports that former NBA guard and long-time assistant Sam Cassell is linked with a move to the Spurs if Popovich decides to retire from the game.
He suggests Sam Cassell as a replacement who can turn Wembanyama and company into one of the most dangerous teams in the league:
Sam Cassell has been an assistant coach in the NBA for nearly two decades and should have been a head coach before John Cena got his bald spot. Over the years, Cassell has been praised for his efforts as an assistant, demonstrating that he has the skills necessary to lead a team.
Cassell is a four-time NBA champion. He won back-to-back titles with the Houston Rockets in the mid-1990s and claimed another championship at the end of his playing career with the Boston Celtics in 2008. His fourth title came from the Celtics’ championship run last summer, during which he was in his second season as an assistant coach with the team.
Cassell has been around the sidelines since 2008, learning from the likes of Joe Mazzulla, Doc Rivers, Flip Saunders, and a littany of other coaches he’s worked with. He can bring a defensive intensity he picked up from the Spurs that can help them win games.
If there’s a knock on his candidacy as head coach, it’s his lack of experience at the role. He hasn’t gotten a nod to lead a team, despite being an assistant for multiple teams.
If the Spurs decide to pick him up, it will be interesting to see how he can transform San Antonio into one of the tougher opponents in the league.
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