Gregg Popovich amassed 1,422 victories as a spurs coach.
Friday, Gregg Popovich resigned from his San Antonio Spurs coach, ending a three-decades race which saw him led the team to five NBA championships, became the leader of all time in the league and would win induction at the basketball renowned temple.
“Although my love and my passion for the game remain, I decided that it was time to move away as a chief coach,” said Popovich.
He will go to the team president. Mitch Johnson, a Spurs assistant who replaced Popovich for the last 77 games of the season, became the team’s coach.
Coach Pop Transitions to Spurs President of basketball operations pic.twitter.com/q8hwqdtb53
– San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) May 2, 2025
We are delighted to announce Mitch Johnson as our new head coach pic.twitter.com/s73hp7Hghn
– San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) May 2, 2025
Popovich, 76, missed all the matches except five this season after having a stroke in 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 published a statement at the end of March saying that he hoped to return to training.
This will not happen.
“I am eternally grateful to the wonderful players, coaches, staff and fans who allowed me to serve them as a head coach of the Spurs and I am delighted to continue to support the organization, the community and the city which are so significant for me,” said Popovich.
Popovich’s career ends with a record of 1,422-869, which includes the 77 games – 32 wins and 45 defeats – which were trained by Johnson this season. He also won 170 playoffs with the Spurs, the most by all the coaches with any team and the third more in total behind only the 229 of Phil Jackson and the 171 of Pat Riley.
“The best that has ever been,” said the great Manu Ginobili of the Spurs last year of Popovich.
Popovich was a triple coach of the NBA year, led the United States to a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games and led to six renown temple in San Antonio – Ginobili, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Dominique Wilkins and Pau Gasol. He clashed against 170 different coaches during his stay in the NBA and there were 303 training modifications made in the league, including provisional movements, at the time of Popovich.
“I have a video on my phone which is, like, without price,” said Chris Paul, who played for the Spurs last season – going, in large part, because of the attraction of playing Popovich. “It was us in Oklahoma City, before shooting, and Pop did ball stuff. All these years, I have always seen pop coaching in a costume, but I did not know how difficult it was to a worker in terms of training.”
This work ethics, said Paul, continued this year after the commitment of the stroke and Popovich towards his rehabilitation process.
“I was the first to arrive at the arena for the matches, and I would pass the training room and pop would be on the treadmill,” said Paul. “I was lucky to be there while POP does rehabilitation or so on. So, to see how hard he works, that’s what I’m happy to have had the chance to see. It had nothing to do with basketball. It just showed who he was. ”
The NBA commissioner Adam Silver published the following statement today concerning Gregg Popovich: pic.twitter.com/9i6bq04viq
– NBA Communications (@nbapr) May 2, 2025
Popovich, in his role as director general of the Spurs, moved to the coach of fires Bob Hill and promoted to this position on December 10, 1996. Timing seemed, at best, annoying. The Spurs were 3-15 at that time, after playing the 18 games without Robinson, who was about to return from injuries. Popovich took over the day Robinson returned to the programming.
“A change of direction was necessary,” said Popovich that day.
The Spurs had not changed direction since.
“The extraordinary impact of the pop coach on our family, San Antonio, the Spurs and the Game of Basketball is deep,” said Spurs director of Spurs, Peter J. Holt. “His distinctions and prices do not do justice to the impact he had on so many people. He is really unique as a person, leader and coach. Our family, alongside fans of the world, is grateful for his remarkable 29-year-old race as a chief trainer of the San Antonio Spurs.”
While the legendary career of coach of Gregg Popovich ends, take a look at his 29 emblematic seasons with San Antonio.
Fortune has changed – Duncan was chosen No. 1 in total in the 1997 recovery – but the management of Popovich has always remained the same. The first championship arrived in 1999; Others followed in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2014. During his first 22 seasons as a coach, the Spurs had 22 winning records, the first 20 of these seasons winning at least 60% of the time.
His decision to move away now comes with the Spurs who had just finished the second year of a reconstruction around the French star Victor Wembanyama, who arrived presented as the next Grand San Antonio and did nothing to suggest that he will not be up to this billing.
Popovich played the US Air Force Academy, famous was not chosen in order to make the 1972 American Olympic team – some always say that he deserved a place in this team – and ended up becoming a coach who could have been perfectly happy to manage Pomona -Pitzer, a division III program in California, throughout his professional life. This school had lost 88 consecutive conference games upon arrival; Popovich did not take a long time to offer a conference championship.
Finally, the NBA called. Over time, Popovich would be twinned with Robinson, then the patriarch of a dynasty fueled by Duncan, Parker and Ginobili. And out of that, Popovich has set up a career like no other.
“Everyone knows the incredible work he has done and all the achievements,” said longtime coach Larry Brown in 2021. “I want more people to really know the type of person they are.”
He was famous grumpy, liked to compete with journalists, rarely offered details of his basketball or private life other than what was necessary. It was real simultaneously and an act; Popovich also has a much softer side – he quietly defends causes like the San Antonio Food Bank for years and was not afraid to make his political opinions known. And those who are lucky to know him find him hilarious.
“He has an incredible sense of humor,” said Boston striker Jayson Tatum, playing for Popovich during the Tokyo Olympic Games four years ago. “I suppose that the occasional fan sees the person who does these interviews after the match, but this is not the case for whom he is at all. I love spending time with him.”
A loss in the NBA 2013 final crushed Popovich, whose Spurs were able to close the heat of Miami in six games, lost match 6 in overtime after Ray Allen is 3 points with 5.2 seconds remaining in life regulations, then fell in match 7. But in moments after the last horn, while Miami Erik Spénik Spoelstra Personal, Popovich joined the Horn with the width.
Thank you, pop coach, for your shine on and off the field. We look forward to our next chapter together. pic.twitter.com/4x6afpsmqm
– San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) May 2, 2025
Spoelstra, who became coach of The Heat in 2008, became the oldest in the League in his current position.
“It has always been an incredible example of class, dignity,” said Spoelstra about Popovich. “To be able to do it after victories or losses, I just think that it is an excellent example that you can always have lessons, whatever the way the result arrives during a match.”
When the Spurs beat the warmth of the title during a revenge in the final in 2014, it was Spoelstra who felt the bite to lose. And again, it was Popovich who sent congratulations for a job well done.
“There is no one as pop,” said Golden State coach Steve Kerr.
Popovich was a mandate like a few others. Popovich led to Spurs for 29 seasons, an almost unequaled duration in the history of major American professional sport. Connie Mack managed Philadelphia’s athletics for 50 years, George Halas resulted in the Chicago Bears for 40 years and John McGraw led the New York Giants for 31 years. These three tenures – all conclusive more than half a century ago – are the only ones exceeding the duration of the Popovich coach race with the Spurs; His 29 -year -old era in San Antonio was equaled by the Tom Landry of the Dallas Cowboys and the Curly Lambeau of Green Bay Packers.
“It means I’m old,” said Popovich last year.
Popovich broke a kind of gender barrier in the league when he hired Becky Hammon as the first woman’s full -time assistant trainer in the league. Hammon, now coach of the Las Vegas Aces of the WNBA, would also become the first woman’s head coach of the NBA summer league and the first acting head coach when she replaced Popovich for a match in 2020.
“Basketball is basketball,” said South Carolina female coach, Dawn Staley, when he asked him about Popovich in 2017. “He has no sex. He has a spirit. He has an approach. He has a will. Given the opportunity, women can excel in this game. As you can see. Becky Hammon is doing a great job. Basketball is tireless.
Popovich spoke of wine whenever he could and offered his point of view on current politics and events, but rarely offered a lot of understanding of coach decisions or personnel questions. It was an almost military secrecy, which was logical since Popovich was a graduate of the US Air Force Academy and was an expert on, among others, the rise and the fall of the Soviet Union.
Look at the legendary career of Gregg Popovich, a member of the Naismith Memorial basketball renowned temple.
His love from the country led him to take a little job on the side of San Antonio-which leads to the Basketball of the United States for the 2019 World Cup and the Tokyo Olympic Games two years later. His World Cup team finished seventh, the worst place for an American team with NBA players. His Olympic team won gold.
“It is impossible to separate it if you have been in the army,” said Popovich when he was asked about the parallels to be in the Air Force Academy and to train the country’s national team. “I had classmates who fought in the wars – I don’t have it – and some of them are no longer with us. You get an appreciation for people who have sacrificed. So when you have the opportunity to do it for your country, it is impossible to say no. I love to be part of it. “
