Pop right now is an interesting comparison.
Like Clarko his initial success came with a special group of players. Won an unexepected early title, then had a big 3 who were kind of like the Hawks best half dozen elite high drafted types (Bud, Cyril, Hodge, Roughy,).
Like Clarko his team led the way with beautiful ball movement and shooting skills (3 pointers). Just like the Hawks they are currently not doing that for some reason.
Like Clarko he saw every assistant who ever had a cup of coffee in the place hired to coach other teams with varying success, each surely taking the intellectual property with them.
Like Clarko he has never and especially now doesn't seem interested in rebuilding, to the extent of signing LMA and Demar DeRozan, both who are very un-Spurs type of players. Just as the way Frost/Scully (kicking) and Patton (forward pressure) are very un Hawthorn players.
Pop's at an interesting stage of his career and the NBA is the ultimate league where teams get punished for hanging around the middle of the standings without enough star power. For small market teams it's tank or pray for a miracle. AFL rebuilding will always require a mixture of draft, trade, free agent, state league/delist etc. But I do think there's times you have to acknowledge the need to at least re-calibrate the list and team.
The other thing that's not acknowledged is just how important the assistant coaches and other footy department support staff are. One look at Will Day tells me I still trust the Hawks recruiters, but there might be room for improvement with a lot of the other Hawks footy department staff.
