Gregg Popovich stepped down as coach of the San Antonio Spurs on Friday, ending a three-decade run that noticed him lead the staff to 5 NBA championships, grow to be the league’s all-time wins chief and earn induction into the Basketball Corridor of Fame.
“Whereas my love and fervour for the sport stay, I’ve determined it is time to step away as head coach,” Popovich stated.
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Popovich, 76, missed all however 5 video games this season after having a stroke on the staff’s enviornment on Nov. 2. He has not spoken publicly since, although had addressed his staff at the very least as soon as and launched a press release in late March saying that he hoped to return to teaching.
That will not be taking place. He’ll stay as staff president.
“I am endlessly grateful to the great gamers, coaches, employees and followers who allowed me to serve them because the Spurs head coach and am excited for the chance to proceed to help the group, neighborhood and metropolis which can be so significant to me,” Popovich stated.
Popovich’s profession ends with a report of 1,422-869, which does embody the 77 video games – 32 wins and 45 losses – that have been coached by Spurs assistant Mitch Johnson this season. He additionally received 170 playoff video games with the Spurs, essentially the most by any coach with anyone staff and the third-most total behind solely Phil Jackson’s 229 and Pat Riley’s 171.
“One of the best there ever was,” Spurs nice Manu Ginobili stated final yr of Popovich.
An NBA and Olympic champion
Popovich was a three-time coach of the yr, 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 in opposition to 170 totally different coaches throughout his time within the NBA and there have been 303 teaching adjustments made within the league, together with interim strikes, throughout the Popovich period.
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“I’ve acquired a video on my cellphone that is, like, priceless,” stated 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 Metropolis, earlier than shootaround, and Pop is doing ballhandling stuff. All these years I’ve at all times seen Pop teaching in a go well with, however I did not understand how laborious of a employee he was on the subject of coaching.”
That work ethic, Paul stated, carried over into this yr after the stroke and Popovich’s dedication to his rehabilitation course of.
“I used to be the primary one to get to the sector for video games, and I’d stroll previous the coaching room and Pop could be on the treadmill,” Paul stated. “I really had an opportunity to be in there whereas Pop is doing rehab or whatnot. So, to see how laborious he works, that is what I am glad I acquired an opportunity to see. It had nothing to do with basketball. It simply confirmed who he’s.”
He took over in 1996
Popovich, in his position as common supervisor of the Spurs, made the transfer to fireside coach Bob Hill and promote himself into that job on Dec. 10, 1996. The timing appeared, at greatest, awkward. The Spurs have been 3-15 at that time, having performed all 18 of these video games with out Robinson, who was nearly to return again from harm. Popovich took over on the day that Robinson returned to the lineup.
“A change in course was mandatory,” Popovich stated that day.
The Spurs hadn’t modified course once more since.
“Coach Pop’s extraordinary influence on our household, San Antonio, the Spurs and the sport of basketball is profound,” Spurs managing associate Peter J. Holt stated. “His accolades and awards do not do justice to the influence he has had on so many individuals. He’s actually one-of-one as an individual, chief and coach. Our complete household, alongside followers from throughout the globe, are grateful for his outstanding 29-year run as the pinnacle coach of the San Antonio Spurs.”
The fortunes modified – Duncan was picked No. 1 total within the 1997 draft – however the course underneath 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 data, 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 yr of a rebuild round French star Victor Wembanyama, who arrived touted as the following San Antonio nice and has carried out nothing to recommend he will not stay as much as that billing.
How he began
Popovich performed on the U.S. Air Pressure Academy, famously wasn’t picked in a bid to make the 1972 U.S. Olympic staff – some nonetheless say he merited a spot on that staff – and wound up turning into a coach who may need been completely content material to run Pomona-Pitzer, a Division III program in California, for the whole thing of his skilled life. That faculty had misplaced 88 consecutive convention video games when he arrived; it did not take lengthy for Popovich to ship a convention championship.
Ultimately, the NBA referred to as. In time, Popovich could 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.
“Everybody is aware of the wonderful job he is carried out and all of the accomplishments,” longtime coach Larry Brown stated in 2021. “I want extra individuals actually may know the kind of particular person that he’s.”
He was famously grumpy, appreciated to conflict with reporters, not often provided any particulars of his basketball or non-public life aside from what was mandatory. It was concurrently actual and an act; Popovich has a a lot softer aspect as nicely – he quietly championed causes just like the San Antonio Meals Financial institution for years and wasn’t afraid to make his political opinions recognized. And people fortunate sufficient to know him discover him hilarious.
“He has a tremendous humorousness,” Boston ahead Jayson Tatum stated whereas taking part in for Popovich throughout the Tokyo Olympics 4 years in the past. “I assume the informal fan sees the one who does these interviews postgame, however that is not the case of who he’s in any respect. I completely love spending time with him.”
A loss within the 2013 NBA Finals crushed Popovich, whose Spurs have 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 stored the Warmth alive, then fell in Sport 7. However within the moments after the ultimate horn, as Miami coach Erik Spoelstra embraced his employees, 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 is at all times simply been an unimaginable instance of sophistication, dignity,” Spoelstra stated of Popovich. “To have the ability to try this after wins or losses, I simply suppose it is a terrific instance which you can nonetheless have class no matter how the result comes throughout a recreation.”
When the Spurs beat the Warmth for the title in a finals rematch in 2014, it was Spoelstra who felt the sting of shedding. And as soon as once more, it was Popovich who despatched congratulations on a job nicely carried out.
“There is no such thing as a one on the market like Pop,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr stated.
A tenure like virtually none different
Popovich’s was a tenure like few others. Popovich coached the Spurs for 29 seasons, a span practically 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 nicely 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 am previous,” Popovich stated final yr.
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 grow to be the primary feminine head summer season league coach within the NBA and first feminine performing head coach when she changed Popovich for a recreation in 2020.
“Basketball is basketball,” South Carolina ladies’s coach Daybreak Staley stated when requested about Popovich in 2017. “It does not have a gender. It has a thoughts. It has an strategy. It has a willingness. Given the chance, ladies can excel on this recreation. As you possibly can see. Becky Hammon is doing a terrific job. You want extra individuals like Coach Popovich to offer them alternatives to study, to develop, and to embrace it. I do not suppose he sees gender. I feel he sees somebody that has a terrific basketball thoughts, that is tireless. When you’re given that chance, you see nice issues come out of it.”
Popovich spoke about wine every time he may and provided his views on politics and present occasions however not often provided a lot perception into teaching choices or personnel issues. It was virtually military-like secrecy, which made sense on condition that Popovich was a graduate of the U.S. Air Pressure Academy and was an professional on, amongst different issues, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union.
His love of nation led to him taking a small aspect 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 staff completed seventh, the worst putting ever for a U.S. staff with NBA gamers. His Olympic staff received gold.
“It is not possible to separate it in case you have been within the army,” Popovich stated when requested in regards to the parallels of being on the Air Pressure Academy and training the nation’s nationwide staff. “I’ve had classmates which have fought in wars – I’ve not – and a few of them are now not with us. You get an appreciation for individuals who have sacrificed. So, when you’ve gotten a possibility to do that in your nation, it is not possible to say no. I like being a part of it.”
