Most people have heard of the five stages of grief. \u00a0As described by author David Kessler:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe five stages \u2014\u00a0denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance \u2014 are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling.But they are not stops on some linear timeline in grief. Not everyone goes through all of them or in a prescribed order.\u201d<\/p>\n
But I am not writing about grief today. \u00a0No, I am writing about hope \u2014 the five stages of hope. \u00a0The Spurs have had two recent games in which fans realistically had no hope that our favorite\u00a0team could pull out a win. <\/p>\n
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One of those games was the second of a back-to-back\u00a0on a cold February night in Toronto. \u00a0(The words \u201cFebruary night in Toronto\u201d are always preceded either by \u201csnowy\u201d, \u2018freezing\u201d or \u201ccold\u201d.) \u00a0The night before, the Spurs had beaten the \u201cbest record in the league\u201d Pistons in an\u00a0extremely\u00a0physical game against the number one defense in the NBA. \u00a0In Toronto barely 24 hours later, the Spurs trailed 90-75 with less than a minute left in the third quarter. While fans had little to no hope, the players had other thoughts. \u00a0After making a three to close the gap to 12 entering the fourth, the Spurs outscored the home team by 32-17 in the final quarter to win by 110-107. \u00a0In some ways, that win was more impressive than the win the night before.<\/p>\n
Last Friday against the Clippers was perhaps even more unlikely. \u00a0Once again, it came 24 hours after an emotional homecoming win against those same Pistons in which Victor Wembanya played a season-high 39 minutes, which meant he was on a severe minutes restriction against the Clippers. Even worse, the Spurs fell behind by even more than in the Raptor game, trailing 75-50 in the third quarted. \u00a0Check out the ESPN odds of the Clippers winning after Kawhi Leonard\u2019s three put\u00a0the Clippers up by 25 points:<\/p>\n
+3 Points 9:23 \u2013 3rd<\/p>\n
Kawhi Leonard makes 26-foot three point jumper (Kris Dunn assists)<\/p>\n
75-50<\/p>\n
Win %: LAC,\u00a098.8<\/p>\n
Once again, the Spurs kept hope alive, outscoring the Clippers by 9 in the third quarter (thank you, Julian Champagnie!) and by 15 in the fourth. \u00a0Yes, hope is a\u00a0powerful thing.<\/p>\n
But hope does not spring from nothing, nor does it occur suddenly or magically in a gym in Toronto or San Antonio. \u00a0Like grief, hope comes in stages. Like grief, hope can arise in\u00a0people, or teams, after different stages and in different orders. <\/p>\n
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For this Spurs team, I\u00a0believe\u00a0the first stage of developing hope arose from the strength of the organization. Perhaps we can describe this stage as\u00a0having a solid foundation or core \u2014 the Spurs, with their remarkable history of success, certainly provide that. \u00a0This also meant instilling the right habits. \u00a0Even when the team was not\u00a0winning, the coaches insured the players played the right way and learned the structure and effort that makes winning possible.<\/p>\n
The second stage in the Spurs journey was planning. \u00a0Even when painful to do so, the Spurs organization planned their future. \u00a0This meant trading away popular and talented players such as Dejounte Murray and Derrick\u00a0White. While the organization and fans loved what those players contributed, they knew that they could not bring the team to the level we wanted. \u00a0Even bringing in Chris Paul on a one-year deal last year was part of the planning, and learning,\u00a0process. <\/p>\n
The next stage for the Spurs was good fortune \u2014 being in the right place at the right time. \u00a0For the Spurs, this happened when they won the lottery the same year that Victor entered the draft. \u00a0We can call this stage \u201copportunity\u201d. \u00a0Others could call this \u201ckarma\u201d. Certainly the entire NBA was happy that he landed with the Spurs, with their history of success and their solid organization. \u00a0Pairing\u00a0him,\u00a0with\u00a0his immense desire to succeed, with an organization known for its success, has been a perfect marriage. And while the Spurs were fortunate to be the team to select\u00a0him, the organization\u2019s intelligence led to the drafting of Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper \u2014 plus the under-rated selection in the last draft of Carter Bryant with the 14th pick,<\/p>\n
The fourth\u00a0stage was, and remains, patience. \u00a0The Spurs have not attempted to skip any steps on their way back to relevance. \u00a0The only significant trade they have made to bring in talent was the trade for De\u201dAaron Fox, a player who really wanted to come play in San Antonio. \u00a0And acquiring Fox did not require squandering significant future capital \u2014 the only one of their picks surrendered was next year\u2019s first round pick. That pick will surely be in the high 20\u2019s, and thus\u00a0reasonably\u00a0expendable.<\/p>\n
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The fifth stage of hope is belief \u2014 an outgrowth of the prior four steps. \u00a0Because of the solid foundation, the careful planning, the good fortune to take advantage of\u00a0opportunity, and the patience to stick with it the plan, the Spurs, their players and their fans now can sincerely believe that this will all come together. \u00a0And because the players and coaching staff believed that they could be better than everyone else predicted, they are now significantly ahead of everyone else\u2019s schedule, but not their own. \u00a0Which is why we all have high hopes, not only for the bright future but also for the\u00a0blindingly\u00a0breathtaking present.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most people have heard of the five stages of grief. \u00a0As described by author David Kessler: \u201cThe five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,978,2596,559,2878,1243,226,529,528,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6,969,474,930,2594,680,1928,693],"class_list":["post-647489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-clippers","tag-basketball","tag-carter-bryant","tag-chris-paul","tag-clippers","tag-dejounte-murray","tag-derrick-white","tag-dylan-harper","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-kris-dunn","tag-la","tag-la-clippers","tag-laclippers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesclippers","tag-nba","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-stephon-castle","tag-the-spurs","tag-toronto","tag-tx","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116194821105198743","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}