NBA icon Gregg Popovich stepping down as San Antonio Spurs coach after 29 seasons
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San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich is ending a glittering coaching career that included five championships and a record 1,422 wins.
PHOTO: USA TODAY SPORTS
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LOS ANGELES – San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich confirmed on May 2 that he is stepping down after 29 seasons, ending a glittering National Basketball Association (NBA) coaching career that included five championships and a record 1,422 wins.
The 76-year-old, a beloved figure across the sport who was sidelined for most of this regular season after suffering a mild stroke in November 2024, will take on a new role as president of basketball operations, the Spurs said.
“While my love and passion for the game remain, I’ve decided it’s time to step away as head coach,” Popovich said.
“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 organisation, community and city that are so meaningful to me.”
San Antonio also announced that Mitch Johnson, who filled in as acting head coach after Popovich’s illness this season, would now take over on a full-time basis.
Popovich joined San Antonio as an assistant coach in 1988 and has spent 37 years in the league as a coach and executive. Apart from two seasons as an assistant coach at the Golden State Warriors, the entirety of his career has been spent in San Antonio.
The longest-tenured head coach in any major sports league in the United States, prior to the May 2 announcement, also led the US to a gold medal at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
“Coach Pop’s extraordinary impact on our family, San Antonio, the Spurs and the game of basketball is profound,” Spurs managing partner Peter Holt said in a statement. “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.”
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that Popovich’s sustained record of success was “incomparable”.
“There are few people in the basketball community as beloved and revered as coach Pop,” he added. “We thank him for his extraordinary leadership and commitment to our sport.”
Speculation about Popovich’s ability to continue in his role as Spurs head coach has swirled since his mild stroke which left him unable to lead the team for the majority of the season.
That sense of uncertainty was heightened in April after he was reportedly hospitalised following a “medical incident” at a restaurant with what was described as a non-life-threatening injury or illness.
Popovich had already announced in February that he would play no part in the remainder of the Spurs’ season, saying he planned to concentrate on his health “with the hope that I can return to coaching in the future”.
In a coaching career that spanned five decades, he forged a reputation as one of the sharpest minds in basketball, a man-manager par excellence who mixed compassion for his players with a willingness to speak his mind.
“Players believed Pop cared about them individually before he cared about them as basketball players,” former Spurs player Terry Porter told The Athletic. “It was never just about basketball for Pop. He values family – your kids, your wife – and that helps with the buy-in, the trust.”
Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, one of Popovich’s assistants in the Tokyo gold medal-winning Olympic team, has described the Spurs coach as a “generational leader”.
Popovich was also famous for his blistering critiques on politics and social issues, regularly laying into US lawmakers for their failure to pass tougher gun-control laws in the aftermath of mass shootings.
He has consistently been a strident critic of US President Donald Trump, branding him a “pathetic, small and damaged man” shortly ahead of 2024’s election.
Meanwhile in NBA play-off action on May 2, the Houston Rockets clinched a 115-107 victory over Golden State to set up a Game 7 showdown in their Western Conference first-round series.
Fred VanVleet scored 29 points for the Rockets, who led most of the game and silenced the crowd at the Warriors’ Chase Centre.
AFP, REUTERS
