“Basketball is a team sport. You preach to your players and they are the ones who have to do things together. That is the story of my life”, declared Gregg Popovich, between irony and solemnity, after becoming the coach with the most wins in NBA history (1,336). The Spurs’ long-suffering victory against the Utah Jazz (104-102), overcoming a 15-point deficit in the last 10 minutes, allowed Popovich, 73, to surpass Don Nelson in the encyclopedia, the man who gave him a job as assistant in the Warriors back in 1992, who was key to stringing together a legendary journey on the bench. “The wonderful players and coaches that I have had and this great city, are the ones that have blessed me. The record is not mine, it is ours and all of San Antonio, “said the Spurs totem in the middle of the party. “His success with the Spurs is unprecedented in our league,” Commissioner Adam Silver said. “His leadership and firm commitment to basketball are widely admired by generations of players and coaches,” he added to dimension the career of an essential figure in the NBA universe.
Popovich, born in East Chicago, Indiana, in January 1949, the son of a Serbian father and a Croatian mother, graduated in 1970 from the United States Air Force Academy and played on its basketball team for four years before moving on to work as an assistant coach there in 1973, in his first adventure on the bench where he has been for half a century. “He was a package as a player,” he acknowledged when his high school team decided to withdraw his shirt for his accumulated excellence as a coach. Shortly after that introductory experience on the Army team, he coached the modest Pomona-Pitzer varsity team while earning a degree in Soviet studies. “I know who I am thanks to the army. They built me there so that I knew what he could do and what he couldn’t do”, he explains each time he takes stock of his life and professional trajectory. A curriculum that also includes five years of experience at the Air Force Academy.
A forge that found accommodation in basketball in 1988, when he joined the Spurs as assistant coach to Larry Brown to start professionalism at the highest level. Four years later, he held the same position in Don Nelson’s Warriors, whom he now surpasses in the encyclopedia of illustrious NBA players (with almost 400 fewer games). Nelson managed four teams (Bucks, Warriors in two stages, Knicks and Mavericks). Popovich became an absolute legend in San Antonio, where he has been in charge for 26 seasons.
In 1994, he returned as general manager to the Spurs, his home to date. A career for history that began when he himself fired Bob Hill and decided to take over the Spurs slate in 1996. Since then, five rings (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2014), an Olympic gold with the US team in Tokyo 2020, four elections as coach of the all-starthree as best coach of the year, 22 consecutive appearances in the playoffs1,336 wins —more than half a dozen franchises—, and an indelible spot on the list of the best ever in the 75 years of the competition.
Only 10 coaches have broken the 1,000-win barrier in the NBA and, of them, only Phil Jackson (70%) has a higher percentage of success than Popovich (66%, with a balance of 1,336 wins and 694 losses in 2,030 directed parties). Numbers that give luster to a legacy that goes far beyond the showcases. A story built hand in hand with an essential figure: Tim Duncan, number one in the draft of 1997.
At that time, the Spurs were collecting failures and the injury of their franchise player, David Robinson, made the balance of the 96-97 course turn out to be disastrous: 20 wins and 62 losses. But that opened the doors to a young man born in the Virgin Islands who was named rookie of the year in its first season and inaugurated an era. Since Popovich began his first full season on the bench for the Texas team and Duncan donned the 21 jersey, the Spurs rewrote franchise and league history. From Duncan’s duo with Robinson to the stellar trio with Tony Parker and Manu Ginóbili. A journey towards success from simplicity, union work, synchronization of movements, distribution of roles and balance as an ideology. An ode to team basketball with Duncan at the head of a group that denied the ailments of age and crowned the experience, from the bench to the court. Popovich keeps the formula in force and is already the coach with the most wins in NBA history.
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