What Zaza Pachulia’s Spurs prediction tells us about the process
[+ NBA Finals G2, Valkyries-Aces recaps]
When Zaza Pachulia recently revealed that he was the only person at the Warriors’ coaches retreat [video clip below the paywall 👇] who believed the Spurs would become contenders, my first reaction was probably the same as yours: How could he be the only one?
But the more I thought about it, the less surprising it became because seeing change coming is one thing, acting on it is something entirely different.
The last two games I watched told the same story. One was the Spurs losing Game 2 of the NBA Finals to the Knicks. The other was the Valkyries falling to the Aces — different leagues, different levels of experience, different expectations, but same lesson: development does not happen on demand.
Watching Victor Wembanyama against New York, I found myself thinking about how easy it is for fans to assume greatness arrives all at once. Wembanyama finished with numbers that many players would celebrate, but the game itself told a different story.
Karl-Anthony Towns repeatedly imposed himself physically on the Spurs. He attacked the paint. He absorbed contact. He established territory.
Meanwhile, Wemby often settled. He drifted to jump shots. He deferred possessions. He threw away opportunities to impose himself physically against a Knicks team that was daring him to do exactly that.
That doesn’t mean Wembanyama isn’t great. It means he’s 22.
People forget that Michael Jordan had to learn how to beat the Pistons. The talent was already there. The athleticism was already there. The skill was already there. The maturity wasn’t.
The understanding of when to use finesse and when to use force took years to develop.
That’s not criticism. That’s the process.
The same thing is happening with the Valkyries. A couple of losses to the veteran Aces have suddenly shifted the conversation. Now everybody wants a roster move, or play Justė Jocytė more, or install more actions, or run more weakside cuts, or create a bigger playbook.
Those ideas sound reasonable until you remember one thing: The Valkyries are an expansion team. What Natalie Nakase and her staff have accomplished already is establishing an identity.
That identity is not perfect, but it exists. The Valkyries defend. They compete. They generate threes and can force them, yes, but they also trust Veronica Burton and Gabby Williams to create advantages, sometimes out of necessity-bordering-on-desperation. At least there is a foundation.
One of the most interesting sequences of the Aces game came on a Jackie Young three. The play itself was beautiful, A’ja Wilson operating as a hub, split cut by Chelsea Gray, turn around and stick her derriere out for a second split cut by Young, all with the real threat of Wilson popping the middy up top. [NOTE: see clip beneath the paywall 👇]
Perfect timing, perfect spacing, open shot as Young curled around wven more action off-ball after the cut.
Fans watch that and immediately ask: “Why don’t the Valkyries run that?”
Because it took years to build. The Aces didn’t wake up one morning and install an elite offensive system, they developed it, they practiced it, they refined it, they learned it through mistakes. Then they repeated it thousands of times.
Basketball fans often treat systems like downloadable software, as if coaches can simply install version 2.0 overnight. Real life doesn’t work that way. Every new wrinkle requires practice time. Every new action requires repetition. Every adjustment requires players learning exactly where they’re supposed to be. And practice time is one of the rarest resources in professional basketball.
This is where I think Warriors fans can relate. Last season, the Warriors opened against Denver and looked fine. Then came a series of younger, faster teams: Portland, Indiana, Milwaukee, Orlando. Suddenly the cracks appeared.
The reaction from fans was immediate. Change this, trade that, bench him, start him, play younger, play faster. But organizations aren’t speedboats. They’re cargo ships.
They spend an entire training camp building an identity. They spend months reinforcing it. Changing direction takes time.
That’s why I found it fascinating when Pachulia recently revealed that he was the lone voice at the Warriors’ coaching retreat warning about San Antonio’s rise. The Spurs didn’t become dangerous overnight. Some people simply recognized the trend before others did.
The hardest skill in sports is patience. Fans want immediate answers because immediate answers feel satisfying, but basketball keeps teaching the same lesson, whether it’s Wemby learning how to dominate physically, Nakase building an expansion franchise, or the Warriors trying to adapt to a younger, faster league.
When I first covered the Dubs full-time over at the Oakland facility, Mark Jackson would almost always give as the answer to a tough, perhaps critical question: “It’s just part of the process.”
Yes, we beat reporters got tired of that and nary a writer put those six words in their articles, but you know what? Despite the stubbornness borne out of a long 17-year career that included epic playoff runs with the Knicks and Pacers, he was right.
And that helped reinforce why I kept showing up every afternoon, popping out of the 12th Street BART station and heading up to the fifth floor for Warriors practice.
You gotta fall in love with the process.
That is what they mean when they say for the love of the game.
[Under the paywall: two clips of Zaza, including announcing on-air with ABC7’s Larry Beil and Adonal Foyle that his sons received D-1 scholarships that day. 👇]
