Gregg Popovich resigned as coach of the San Antonio Spurs on Friday, ending a three decades that saw him take the team to five NBA championships, become the leader of the League of all time and win induction in the Hall of Basketball Fame.
“While my love and passion for the game remain, I have decided that it is time to get away as a chief coach,” said Popovich.
It will remain as president of the team.
Popovich, 76, was lost all but five games this season after receiving a blow to the team of the team on November 2. He has not spoken publicly since then, although he had addressed his team at least once and issued a statement at the end of March saying that he hoped to train again.
That will not happen.
“I am always grateful to the wonderful players, coaches, personal and fans who allowed me to serve as a coach of the Spurs and I am excited about the opportunity to continue supporting the organization, the community and the city that are so significant to me,” said Popovich.
Popovich’s career ends with a 1,422-869 record, which includes the 77 games, 32 wins and 45 losses, which were trained by the Spurs Mitch Johnson assistant this season. He also won 170 playoff games with the Spurs, the majority of any coach with any team and the third more in general behind only the 229 of Phil Jackson and the 171 of Pat Riley.
“The best there is,” said the Great Manu Ginobili of the Spurs last year of Popovich.
Popovich was three times coach of the year, took the United States to a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games and trained six members of the Hall of Fame in San Antonio: Ginobili, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Dominique Wilkins and Pau Gasol. He faced 170 different coaches during his time in the NBA and 303 changes in training in the league have been made, including interim movements, during the Popovich era.
“I have a video on my phone that is priceless,” said Chris Paul, who played for the Spurs last season, going there, in large part, due to the appeal of playing for Popovich. “We were in Oklahoma City, before firing, and Pop is doing manipulation things. All these years I have always seen training pop in a suit, but I didn’t know how hard a worker was when it comes to training.”
That work ethic, Paul said, moved this year after Popovich’s blow and commitment to his rehabilitation process.
“I was the first to get to the sand for the games, and passed through the training room and pop would be on the running tape,” Paul said. “In fact, I had the opportunity to be there while pop is doing rehabilitation or that.
Popovich, in his role as general manager of the Spurs, made the movement to say goodbye to coach Bob Hill and promoted himself in that work on December 10, 1996. The moment seemed, in the best case, uncomfortable. The Spurs were 3-15 at that time, after playing the 18 games without Robinson, which was about to return from an injury. Popovich took over the day Robinson returned to the alignment.
“A change of direction was necessary,” said Popovich that day.
The Spurs had not changed direction since then.
“The extraordinary impact of the pop coach on our family, San Antonio, the Spurs and the basketball game is deep,” said Spurs managing partner Peter J. Holt. “His praise and prizes do not do justice to the impact he has had on so many people. He is really one as a person, leader and coach. All our family, along with fans around the world, are grateful for their remarkable 29 -year -old career as a chief coach of the San Antonio Spurs.”
Fortune changed: Duncan was chosen number 1 in general in the 1997 draft, but the direction under Popovich always remained the same. The first championship arrived in 1999; Others followed in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2014. In their first 22 seasons as chief coach, the Spurs had 22 winning records, the first 20 of those seasons won at least 60% of the time.
His decision to get away now comes with the Spurs that have just completed the second year of a reconstruction around the French star Victor Wembanyama, who came promoted as the next San Antonio and has done nothing to suggest that he will not be up to that turnover.
Popovich played at the US Air Force Academy. UU., Famous was not chosen in an attempt to make the American Olympic team of 1972, some still say that he deserved a place in that team, and ended up becoming a coach who could have been perfectly happy to direct Pomona-Pitzer, a program of division III in California, for the entire professional life. That school had lost 88 consecutive conference games when it arrived; Popovich did not take long to deliver a conference championship.
Finally, the NBA called. Over time, Popovich would combine with Robinson, then the patriarch of a dynasty fed by Duncan, Parker and Ginobili. And out of that, Popovich gathered a career like no other.
“Everyone knows the incredible work he has done and all the achievements,” said coach Larry Brown in 2021. “I would like more people to really know the type of person who is.”
He was famous in a bad mood, he liked to collide with journalists, rarely offered details of his basketball or private life that is not necessary. It was simultaneously real and an act; Popovich also has a much softer side: in silence he defended causes such as the San Antonio Food Bank for years and was not afraid to publicize his political views. And those who are lucky to meet him find him hilarious.
“It has an amazing sense of humor,” Boston’s forward Jayson Tatum said while playing for Popovich during Tokyo Olympic Games four years ago. “I guess the casual fan sees the person who does those interviews after the game, but that is not the case of who he is. I love spending time with him.”
A defeat in the NBA finals of 2013 crushed Popovich, whose spurs were in a position to close the Miami Heat in six games, lost the game 6 in extra time after Ray Allen’s triple with 5.2 seconds remaining in the regulation kept the Heat alive, then fell into the game 7. But at the time after the final horn, when the Miami Erik Spo Speal Popovich, the hug with a wide smile.
Spoelstra, who became a chief coach of The Heat in 2008, now becomes the oldest in the League in its current position.
“It has always been an incredible class example, dignity,” Spoelstra said about Popovich. “To be able to do that after the victories or losses, I think it is a great example that you can still have class regardless of how the result occurs during a game.”
When the Spurs exceeded the heat for the title in a final rematch in 2014, it was Spoelstra who felt the sting of losing. And once again, it was Popovich who sent congratulations for a job well done.
“There is no one out there as pop,” said Golden State coach Steve Kerr.
Popovich was a mandate like few. Popovich trained the Spurs for 29 seasons, an almost unmatched section in the history of the main professional sports of the United States. Uu. Connie Mack handled the athletics of Philadelphia for 50 years, George Halas trained the Chicago Bears for 40 years and John McGraw managed the New York giants for 31 years. These three holdings, all wrapped more than half a century ago, are the only ones that exceed the duration of Popovich’s training career with the Spurs; Its effectiveness of 29 years in San Antonio was matched by Tom Landry of the Dallas Cowboys and the Lambeau curly of the Green Bay Packers.
“It means I am old,” Popovich said last year.
Popovich broke a kind of gender barrier in the league when he hired Becky Hammon as the first full -time women’s assistant coach of the league. Hammon, now coach of Las Vegas of the WNBA, would also become the first women’s summer league coach in the NBA and the first women’s performance coach when she replaced Popovich for a game in 2020.
“Basketball is basketball,” said South Carolina women and that they invite you to grow.
Popovich talked about wine every time he could and offered his views on politics and current events, but rarely offered a lot of information about training decisions or personnel issues. It was almost a military secret, which made sense since Popovich was a graduate from the United States Air Force Academy and was an expert in other things, the ascent and fall of the Soviet Union.
His love for the country led him to take a small parallel job during his mandate in San Antonio, who was a US basketball coach for the 2019 World Cup and Tokyo Olympic Games two years later. His World Cup team ended seventh, the worst placement of an American team with NBA players. His Olympic team won the gold.
“It is impossible to separate it if you have been in the Army,” Popovich said when asked about the parallels of being at the Air Force Academy and training the national team of the country. “I have had classmates who have fought in wars, I have not done it, and some of them are no longer with us. You appreciate the people who have sacrificed. So, when you have the opportunity to do this for your country, it is impossible to say no. I love being part of that.”
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