Gregg Popovich, the NBA’s all-time wins leader, retires after 29 seasons as coach in San Antonio

San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, center, claps during the basketball team's parade and celebration for their fifth NBA Championship, Wednesday, June 18, 2014, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Michael Thomas)

Gregg Popovich stepped down as coach of the San Antonio Spurs on Friday, ending a three-decade run that saw him lead the team to five NBA championships, become the league’s all-time wins leader and earn induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

“While my love and passion for the game remain, I’ve decided it’s time to step away as head coach,” Popovich said.

He will remain as team president. Mitch Johnson, a Spurs assistant who filled in for Popovich for the season’s final 77 games, becomes the team’s head coach.

Popovich, 76, missed all but five games this season after having a stroke at the team’s arena on Nov. 2. He has not spoken publicly since, though had addressed his team at least once and released a statement in late March saying that he hoped to return to coaching.

That won’t be happening.

“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 organization, community and city that are so meaningful to me,” Popovich said.

Popovich’s career ends with a record of 1,422-869, which does include the 77 games -- 32 wins and 45 losses -- that were coached by Johnson this season. He also won 170 playoff games with the Spurs, the most by any coach with any one team and the third-most overall behind only Phil Jackson’s 229 and Pat Riley’s 171.

“The best there ever was,” Spurs great Manu Ginobili said last year of Popovich.

An NBA and Olympic champion

Popovich was a three-time coach of the year, led the U.S. to a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics and coached six Hall of Famers in San Antonio -- Ginobili, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Dominique Wilkins and Pau Gasol. He went up against 170 different coaches during his time in the NBA and there have been 303 coaching changes made in the league, including interim moves, during the Popovich era.

“I’ve got a video on my phone that’s, like, priceless,” said Chris Paul, who played for the Spurs this past season -- going there, in large part, because of the lure of playing for Popovich. “It was us in Oklahoma City, before shootaround, and Pop is doing ballhandling stuff. All these years I’ve always seen Pop coaching in a suit, but I didn’t know how hard of a worker he was when it comes to training.”

That work ethic, Paul said, carried over into this year after the stroke and Popovich’s commitment to his rehabilitation process.

“I was the first one to get to the arena for games, and I would walk past the training room and Pop would be on the treadmill,” Paul said. “I actually had a chance to be in there while Pop is doing rehab or whatnot. So, to see how hard he works, that’s what I’m glad I got a chance to see. It had nothing to do with basketball. It just showed who he is.”

He took over in 1996

Popovich, in his role as general manager of the Spurs, made the move to fire coach Bob Hill and promote himself into that job on Dec. 10, 1996. The timing seemed, at best, awkward. The Spurs were 3-15 at that point, having played all 18 of those games without Robinson, who was just about to come back from injury. Popovich took over on the day that Robinson returned to the lineup.

“A change in direction was necessary,” Popovich said that day.

The Spurs hadn’t changed direction again since.

“Coach Pop’s extraordinary impact on our family, San Antonio, the Spurs and the game of basketball is profound,” Spurs managing partner Peter J. Holt said. “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.”

The fortunes changed -- Duncan was picked No. 1 overall in the 1997 draft -- but the direction under Popovich always stayed the same. The first championship came in 1999; others followed in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2014. In his first 22 seasons as head coach, the Spurs had 22 winning records, the first 20 of those seasons winning at least 60% of the time.

His decision to step away now comes with the Spurs having just completed the second year of a rebuild around French star Victor Wembanyama, who arrived touted as the next San Antonio great and has done nothing to suggest he won’t live up to that billing.

How he started

Popovich played at the U.S. Air Force Academy, famously wasn’t picked in a bid to make the 1972 U.S. Olympic team -- some still say he merited a spot on that team -- and wound up becoming a coach who might have been perfectly content to run Pomona-Pitzer, a Division III program in California, for the entirety of his professional life. That school had lost 88 consecutive conference games when he arrived; it didn’t take long for Popovich to deliver a conference championship.

Eventually, the NBA called. In time, Popovich would be paired with Robinson, then the patriarch of a dynasty fueled by Duncan, Parker and Ginobili. And out of that, Popovich put together a career like none other.

“Everyone knows the amazing job he’s done and all the accomplishments,” longtime coach Larry Brown said in 2021. “I wish more people really could know the type of person that he is.”

He was famously grumpy, liked to clash with reporters, rarely offered any details of his basketball or private life other than what was necessary. It was simultaneously real and an act; Popovich has a much softer side as well -- he quietly championed causes like the San Antonio Food Bank for years and wasn’t afraid to make his political views known. And those lucky enough to know him find him hilarious.

“He has an amazing sense of humor,” Boston forward Jayson Tatum said while playing for Popovich during the Tokyo Olympics four years ago. “I guess the casual fan sees the person who does those interviews postgame, but that’s not the case of who he is at all. I absolutely love spending time with him.”

A loss in the 2013 NBA Finals crushed Popovich, whose Spurs were in position to close out the Miami Heat in six games, lost Game 6 in overtime after Ray Allen’s 3-pointer with 5.2 seconds remaining in regulation kept the Heat alive, then fell in Game 7. But in the moments after the final horn, as Miami coach Erik Spoelstra embraced his staff, Popovich joined the hug with a wide smile.

Spoelstra, who became head coach of the Heat in 2008, now becomes the league’s longest-tenured in his current position.

“He’s always just been an incredible example of class, dignity,” Spoelstra said of Popovich. “To be able to do that after wins or losses, I just think it’s a great example that you can still have class regardless of how the outcome comes during a game.”

When the Spurs beat the Heat for the title in a finals rematch in 2014, it was Spoelstra who felt the sting of losing. And once again, it was Popovich who sent congratulations on a job well done.

“There is no one out there like Pop,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said.

A tenure like almost none other

Popovich’s was a tenure like few others. Popovich coached the Spurs for 29 seasons, a span nearly unmatched in U.S. major pro sports history. 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. Those three tenures -- all wrapping up well over a half-century ago -- are the only ones exceeding the length of Popovich’s coaching run with the Spurs; his 29-year era in San Antonio was matched by the Dallas Cowboys’ Tom Landry and the Green Bay Packers’ Curly Lambeau.

“It means I’m old,” Popovich said last year.

Popovich broke a gender barrier of sorts in the league when he hired Becky Hammon as the league’s first female full-time paid assistant coach. Hammon, now coach of the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces, would also become the first female head summer league coach in the NBA and first female acting head coach when she replaced Popovich for a game in 2020.

“Basketball is basketball,” South Carolina women’s coach Dawn Staley said when asked about Popovich in 2017. “It doesn’t have a gender. It has a mind. It has an approach. It has a willingness. Given the opportunity, women can excel in this game. As you can see. Becky Hammon is doing a great job. You need more people like Coach Popovich to give them opportunities to learn, to grow, and to embrace it. I don’t think he sees gender. I think he sees someone that has a great basketball mind, that’s tireless. Once you’re given that opportunity, you see great things come out of it.”

Popovich spoke about wine whenever he could and offered his views on politics and current events but rarely offered much insight into coaching decisions or personnel matters. It was almost military-like secrecy, which made sense given that Popovich was a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and was an expert on, among other things, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union.

His love of country led to him taking a small side job during his San Antonio tenure -- that being coaching USA Basketball for the 2019 World Cup and the Tokyo Olympics two years later. His World Cup team finished seventh, the worst placing ever for a U.S. team with NBA players. His Olympic team won gold.

“It’s impossible to separate it if you have been in the military,” Popovich said when asked about the parallels of being at the Air Force Academy and coaching the country’s national team. “I’ve had classmates that have fought in wars -- I have not -- and some of them are no longer with us. You get an appreciation for people who have sacrificed. So, when you have an opportunity to do this for your country, it’s impossible to say no. I love being part of it.”

Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press