Pop Fined For Remarks About Greg Oden

In case you've been following the NCAA tournament so closely that you missed this bit of Spurs news, here it is.

Mike Monroe reports in the Express-News that, according to an NBA source, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich was fined $15,000 for remarks about Greg Oden in respone to "a Boston Herald reporter about whether it would be fair for the Celtics to land the No. 1 pick in this summer's draft with Oden potentially available because Boston had lost out on the chance to take Tim Duncan in 1997."

"That would be the fair thing, wouldn't it? That would be the fairest thing. If they could get him, that would be great. It would mean there is some fairness in an unfair world."

Popovich, who never said Oden's name but was clearly talking about him, then made what seemed to be an off-the-cuff comment about Ohio State's near loss to Xavier that same day.

"If they'd lost, I thought, is this going to make that kid want to stay in one more year? I don't know, maybe he's just collegiately oriented, and it's a big disappointment, and he wants to come back and get it done.

"What would that do? I mean, everybody would just die. The bottom five teams would just croak. Then they came back and won."