By TIM REYNOLDS
Gregg Popovich stepped down as coach of the San Antonio Spurs on Friday, ending a three-decade run that noticed him lead the crew to 5 NBA championships, turn out to be the league’s all-time wins chief and earn induction into the Basketball Corridor of Fame.
“While my love and passion for the game remain, I’ve decided it’s time to step away as head coach,” Popovich mentioned.
He’ll stay as crew president.
Popovich, 76, missed all however 5 video games this season after having a stroke on the crew’s enviornment on Nov. 2. He has not spoken publicly since, although had addressed his crew at the very least as soon as and launched a press release in late March saying that he hoped to return to teaching.
That received’t be taking place.
“I’m forever grateful to the wonderful players, coaches, staff and fans who allowed me to serve them as the Spurs head coach and am excited for the opportunity to continue to support the organization, community and city that are so meaningful to me,” Popovich mentioned.
Popovich’s profession ends with a file of 1,422-869, which does embody the 77 video games — 32 wins and 45 losses — that had been coached by Spurs assistant Mitch Johnson this season. He additionally received 170 playoff video games with the Spurs, probably the most by any coach with anyone crew and the third-most total behind solely Phil Jackson’s 229 and Pat Riley’s 171.
“The best there ever was,” Spurs nice Manu Ginobili mentioned final 12 months of Popovich.
An NBA and Olympic champion
Popovich was a three-time coach of the 12 months, led the U.S. to a gold medal on the Tokyo Olympics and coached six Corridor of Famers in San Antonio — Ginobili, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Dominique Wilkins and Pau Gasol. He went up towards 170 completely different coaches throughout his time within the NBA and there have been 303 teaching adjustments made within the league, together with interim strikes, in the course of the Popovich period.
“I’ve got a video on my phone that’s, like, priceless,” mentioned Chris Paul, who performed for the Spurs this previous season — going there, largely, due to the lure of taking part in for Popovich. “It was us in Oklahoma City, before shootaround, and Pop is doing ballhandling stuff. All these years I’ve always seen Pop coaching in a suit, but I didn’t know how hard of a worker he was when it comes to training.”
That work ethic, Paul mentioned, carried over into this 12 months after the stroke and Popovich’s dedication to his rehabilitation course of.
“I was the first one to get to the arena for games, and I would walk past the training room and Pop would be on the treadmill,” Paul mentioned. “I actually had a chance to be in there while Pop is doing rehab or whatnot. So, to see how hard he works, that’s what I’m glad I got a chance to see. It had nothing to do with basketball. It just showed who he is.”
He took over in 1996
Popovich, in his function as common supervisor of the Spurs, made the transfer to fireplace coach Bob Hill and promote himself into that job on Dec. 10, 1996. The timing appeared, at greatest, awkward. The Spurs had been 3-15 at that time, having performed all 18 of these video games with out Robinson, who was nearly to come back again from harm. Popovich took over on the day that Robinson returned to the lineup.
“A change in direction was necessary,” Popovich mentioned that day.
The Spurs hadn’t modified path once more since.
“Coach Pop’s extraordinary impact on our family, San Antonio, the Spurs and the game of basketball is profound,” Spurs managing accomplice Peter J. Holt mentioned. “His accolades and awards don’t do justice to the impact he has had on so many people. He is truly one-of-one as a person, leader and coach. Our entire family, alongside fans from across the globe, are grateful for his remarkable 29-year run as the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs.”
The fortunes modified — Duncan was picked No. 1 total within the 1997 draft – however the path beneath Popovich at all times stayed the identical. The primary championship got here in 1999; others adopted in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2014. In his first 22 seasons as head coach, the Spurs had 22 profitable information, the primary 20 of these seasons profitable at the very least 60% of the time.
His choice to step away now comes with the Spurs having simply accomplished the second 12 months of a rebuild round French star Victor Wembanyama, who arrived touted as the subsequent San Antonio nice and has accomplished nothing to counsel he received’t stay as much as that billing.
How he began
Popovich performed on the U.S. Air Power Academy, famously wasn’t picked in a bid to make the 1972 U.S. Olympic crew — some nonetheless say he merited a spot on that crew — and wound up changing into a coach who might need been completely content material to run Pomona-Pitzer, a Division III program in California, for everything of his skilled life. That college had misplaced 88 consecutive convention video games when he arrived; it didn’t take lengthy for Popovich to ship a convention championship.
Finally, the NBA known as. In time, Popovich can be paired with Robinson, then the patriarch of a dynasty fueled by Duncan, Parker and Ginobili. And out of that, Popovich put collectively a profession like none different.
“Everyone knows the amazing job he’s done and all the accomplishments,” longtime coach Larry Brown mentioned in 2021. “I wish more people really could know the type of person that he is.”
He was famously grumpy, appreciated to conflict with reporters, not often provided any particulars of his basketball or personal life apart from what was obligatory. It was concurrently actual and an act; Popovich has a a lot softer facet as properly — he quietly championed causes just like the San Antonio Meals Financial institution for years and wasn’t afraid to make his political opinions identified. And people fortunate sufficient to know him discover him hilarious.
“He has an amazing sense of humor,” Boston ahead Jayson Tatum mentioned whereas taking part in for Popovich in the course of the Tokyo Olympics 4 years in the past. “I guess the casual fan sees the person who does those interviews postgame, but that’s not the case of who he is at all. I absolutely love spending time with him.”
A loss within the 2013 NBA Finals crushed Popovich, whose Spurs had been in place to shut out the Miami Warmth in six video games, misplaced Sport 6 in additional time after Ray Allen’s 3-pointer with 5.2 seconds remaining in regulation saved the Warmth alive, then fell in Sport 7. However within the moments after the ultimate horn, as Miami coach Erik Spoelstra embraced his workers, Popovich joined the hug with a large smile.
Spoelstra, who grew to become head coach of the Warmth in 2008, now turns into the league’s longest-tenured in his present place.
“He’s always just been an incredible example of class, dignity,” Spoelstra mentioned of Popovich. “To be able to do that after wins or losses, I just think it’s a great example that you can still have class regardless of how the outcome comes during a game.”
When the Spurs beat the Warmth for the title in a finals rematch in 2014, it was Spoelstra who felt the sting of dropping. And as soon as once more, it was Popovich who despatched congratulations on a job properly accomplished.
“There is no one out there like Pop,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr mentioned.
A tenure like nearly none different
Popovich’s was a tenure like few others. Popovich coached the Spurs for 29 seasons, a span almost unmatched in U.S. main professional sports activities historical past. Connie Mack managed the Philadelphia Athletics for 50 years, George Halas coached the Chicago Bears for 40 years and John McGraw managed the New York Giants for 31 years. These three tenures — all wrapping up properly over a half-century in the past — are the one ones exceeding the size of Popovich’s teaching run with the Spurs; his 29-year period in San Antonio was matched by the Dallas Cowboys’ Tom Landry and the Inexperienced Bay Packers’ Curly Lambeau.
“It means I’m old,” Popovich mentioned final 12 months.
Popovich broke a gender barrier of kinds within the league when he employed Becky Hammon because the league’s first feminine full-time paid assistant coach. Hammon, now coach of the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces, would additionally turn out to be the primary feminine head summer time league coach within the NBA and first feminine performing head coach when she changed Popovich for a sport in 2020.
“Basketball is basketball,” South Carolina ladies’s coach Daybreak Staley mentioned when requested about Popovich in 2017. “It doesn’t have a gender. It has a mind. It has an approach. It has a willingness. Given the opportunity, women can excel in this game. As you can see. Becky Hammon is doing a great job. You need more people like Coach Popovich to give them opportunities to learn, to grow, and to embrace it. I don’t think he sees gender. I think he sees someone that has a great basketball mind, that’s tireless. Once you’re given that opportunity, you see great things come out of it.”
Popovich spoke about wine every time he might and provided his views on politics and present occasions however not often provided a lot perception into teaching choices or personnel issues. It was nearly military-like secrecy, which made sense on condition that Popovich was a graduate of the U.S. Air Power Academy and was an skilled on, amongst different issues, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union.
His love of nation led to him taking a small facet job throughout his San Antonio tenure — that being teaching USA Basketball for the 2019 World Cup and the Tokyo Olympics two years later. His World Cup crew completed seventh, the worst inserting ever for a U.S. crew with NBA gamers. His Olympic crew received gold.
“It’s impossible to separate it if you have been in the military,” Popovich mentioned when requested in regards to the parallels of being on the Air Power Academy and training the nation’s nationwide crew. “I’ve had classmates that have fought in wars — I have not — and some of them are no longer with us. You get an appreciation for people who have sacrificed. So, when you have an opportunity to do this for your country, it’s impossible to say no. I love being part of it.”
