One of the greatest coaches and overall team-builders in NBA history is going to draft one of the best prospects in modern NBA history No. 1 Thursday tonight. The combination of Gregg Popovich and Victor Wembanyama has predictably made us salivate and wonder what it might be like to see someone with a skill set we can’t quite fathom in the hands of someone who built a modern dynasty that yielded five championships and 22 straight trips to the playoffs.
Of course, the part we’ll talk less about is the fact that Popovich was willing to lose for a few seasons to put himself in a position to get Wembanyama. While the NBA lottery system theoretically disincentivizes tanking better than the NFL format of going strictly by record, the Spurs, following the dispensing of their incredible core, allowed themselves to be better suited to accumulate talent instead of scraping for a low-end playoff spot.
As a football obsessive, it brings one question to mind: What might have happened if the NFL’s version of Popovich, Bill Belichick, had made the same decision following the breakup of his own dynasty?
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports (Belichick); Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union/USA TODAY Network (Lawrence)
While the hypothetical pairing of Belichick and, say, Trevor Lawrence is not directly analogous to Popovich and Wembanyama, there are enough similarities to conduct the thought experiment. The Patriots were coming off an obvious breaking point following the departure of Tom Brady in 2020 and chose to ride the roster out with a still-useful-but-obviously-limited Cam Newton. They won seven games, which put them in a middle-round draft slot, far removed from Lawrence (or any of the other two quarterbacks, Trey Lance and Zach Wilson, who were believed to be a tier below).
In hindsight the answer is obvious, but given how the last few years have transpired, I wonder whether the Patriots could have applied their winning-edge formula to a period of tanking and made the best of it. For example, last season we read about New England trying to sandwich an outside-zone-style running game into their scheme during training camp to disastrous results. They could have tried that live during the course of a year and decided whether it was something that could work long term without any concern. While I am firmly against the use of player health and safety to experiment with different football philosophies and to achieve a higher draft standing, someone as smart as Belichick may have truly benefited from a year of trial and error. He wouldn’t have just ended up with Lawrence, but he would have arrived with a better knowledge of how his personnel would fit in a post-Brady era.
While we are not privy to any internal conversations at Patriot Place, one has to assume Belichick would have been too proud to entertain any kind of tanking period and for that he should be commended. Brady went to a club perfectly suited for him to win a Super Bowl and, despite the difference in roster strength, there was an obvious competitiveness that fueled both of them in the years following their breakup. The optics alone of the Patriots’ bottoming out without Brady would have been difficult for someone like Belichick to swallow. It also would have put him further off pace of setting the NFL’s all-time coaching wins record (he is 30 behind Don Shula).
On the flip side, losing six more games than he did in 2020 could have equated to three or four extra wins in each subsequent year with Lawrence. It would have also drastically shortened the window of time that the Patriots were subservient to the Bills in the AFC East. We would be talking about the Patriots this year not only as obvious divisional favorites, but potential Super Bowl favorites when complementing Lawrence with New England’s always stellar defense.
We have yet to see Mac Jones at this level of physical and mental maturity paired with a capable offensive coordinator. During a formative growth year in 2022, Jones was paired with Matt Patricia and Joe Judge, to disastrous results. The year before, Jones finished second to a transcendent Ja’Marr Chase in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting. He clearly has an upside.
Perhaps this season he will not fully erase the gap between himself and Lawrence, but at least make it small enough to understand why Belichick steered the ship in the direction he did. Until then, it will be impossible not to think of what could have been, especially as we see some version of it take shape on an NBA court.
