People wanting Mitch Johnson fired have extremely unreasonable expectations -- Pop had 2.5 pro years coaching on Mitch by the 1999 Finals
Anyway, you slice it, Gregg Popovich has more total time spent coaching and learning than Mitch Johnson. An estimate on how much more experience Popovich had by the time he arrived at his first NBA Finals depending on how you count it, would be somewhere between 9 and 13 years.
Trust me, I did the math.
Mitch Johnson took an extremely young team with absolutely zero bench and took some risks as a head coach in the NBA Finals. Did they pay off? No, they didn't. The gambles that he took are the same ones that would get him massive praise had they paid off.
I'm reminded of Steve Kerr's decision to not call the timeout in that regular season game against Oklahoma City where Curry shot the half-court game-winning three. Gutsy decision that led to a historic game winner.
I'm also reminded of Steve Kerr's 3-1 loss to the 2016 Cavaliers. By y'all's logic, y'all would have had him sacked that season, then and there, because he literally blew three games in a row and led to the most unlikely NBA Finals comeback loss in the history of the sport.
Mitch Johnson is doing fine. The Spurs organization is one that takes time to develop everyone. Think about Patty Mills or Boris Diaw, who were famously overweight and not in shape by the time they first arrived in San Antonio.
Think about Manu, who was drafted so low and was seen as an afterthought and ended up becoming the greatest six man of all time.
Furthermore, by the time Pop had the Spurs in the Finals, they had two future Hall of Famers in Robinson and Duncan that gave him a cushion to help win.
Even then, the New York Knicks took Pop to seven games.
Mitch has a young and developing Wemby and motherfucking --
Harrison Barnes
Kelly Olynyk
and Mason PPlum-lee
--
As the backups for Wemby, besides Luke Kornet.
No disrespect to the trio I just listed, but even they would probably agree that they're only there for veteran support and mentorship, not for NBA finals playing time against young Mitch Robinson or Karl Anthony Towns.