Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Addressing his late friend, Gregg Popovich pulled back the curtain on his strategic blueprint. “Most of the stuff that I ran in San Antonio I stole from you. And I just tweaked it because I had different players,” he admitted. Surveying the crowd, Popovich admitted to feeling ‘a little PTSD’ while looking at former on-court rivals in the audience. Yet, the atmosphere remained overwhelmingly warm as he emphasized Nelson’s immense impact on everyone in the room. The 77-year-old tactician described Nelson as a uniquely special person whose gruff exterior masked a heart ‘bigger than the moon’ and ‘soft as marshmallows’, perfectly capturing the duality of a fierce competitor who remained a gentle, generous soul to those he loved.
Gregg Popovich told his boss, Golden State Warriors coach Don Nelson, that he had a five-year deal on the table with annual raises of $50,000. Popovich told Nelson he loved working for him in Golden State and wasn’t sure whether he should take it. “He said, ‘You big dummy, Poppo, you’re going back there,’” Popovich recalled. “‘And this is how you are going to do it. Call them back and say, ‘Add $50,000 to my first year. From there, $50,000 on top of that.’ So at the end, after five years, you will have made $250,000 more. That will pay for your house.’” Popovich was one of nearly a dozen Basketball Hall of Famers who gathered inside the Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church on Thursday for a ceremony to honor Nelson, who died Sunday at 86.
Was it a relief to make it to the Hall of Fame? Doc Rivers: I believed that I was going to get in at some point. But it was a relief that I was in. I wanted to get in while I was still coaching, and I achieved that. I championed that. I really fought early on for Pop [Gregg Popovich]. I’ve always got something I’m fighting for. I just felt like Steve Kerr, myself, Spo [Erik Spoelstra, should be Hall of Famers]. College coaches get to coach and be [named] “Hall of Fame coach.” But [active] NBA coaches rarely get that. I really believe it would have saved some of these guys’ jobs, like George Karl. … His career should have been in the Hall. Then he gets in after he leaves [coaching]. But would he still have been coaching if he was “Hall of Fame coach George Karl?” So, it’s a big thing for me, and I’m still pushing to get Rick Carlisle in now. It’s so funny. I’m in, but now I’m still working for NBA coaches.
In 31 seasons as an NBA head coach with the Milwaukee Bucks, Golden State Warriors (twice), New York Knicks and Dallas Mavericks, Nelson finished with a regular-season record of 1,335-1,063. He retired with the most coaching wins ever, a mark that was broken by the San Antonio Spurs' Gregg Popovich in March 2022. Nelson made 18 playoff appearances as a coach, finishing with a 75-91 postseason record. As a player, Nelson won five NBA titles in 11 seasons with the Boston Celtics, who retired his No. 19 jersey in 1978. Overall, he played 14 seasons in the NBA. Immediately following his playing career, Nelson joined the Milwaukee Bucks as an assistant coach for the 1976-77 season. Just 15 games into that season, he was promoted to head coach after Larry Costello was fired.
Advertisement
Gregg Popovich is moving in a positive direction as he continues to recover from his health issues. San Antonio Spurs CEO RC Buford provided the uplifting update on the basketball legend in his recent appearance on Trashtalk. “He continues to rehab with more purpose and diligence than I think any of us could have imagined," Buford revealed when asked about Popovich's current health status. "He’s improving, and his presence is always there to support the team.”
The stoicism, it turns out, has an origin story. “I think it started off just being on the Spurs,” he says, “just seeing the older vets and how they carried themselves and what they wanted their players to act like on the floor.” The Spurs, under Gregg Popovich, famously ran one of the most understated franchises in professional sports — a culture shaped in no small part by Tim Duncan, who won five championships and retired without ever seeming particularly interested in being celebrated for it. Leonard was young and paying close attention. “Once I started doing that, they kind of put me in the Tim Duncan thing because they wanted me to be the face of the franchise,” he says. “And I don’t know, it just kind of carried on from there.”
“Coach Pop’s office was right next to mine and I was very fortunate,” Sweeney said. “When you’re next to a guy who’s the greatest coach of all time daily, the fact that he even said hello and knew my name meant something to me. So yeah, Coach Pop, he built that program and guys like me are fortunate to be part of it. I’m very grateful and that’s part of the reason why I’m here now.”
Tom Petrini: Mike Brown shouts out Popovich when asked about blocking out the noise: "The term is a bunker mentality, it's actually something that I learned from Pop back in the early 2000s when you get to this level, or you're playing in a bigger market, especially, there's going to be a lot of noise, and you're going to hit some adversity throughout the course of the season, and this is what I talked about when I said, you know, you hope you hit adversity, because you want to see how everybody reacts, not just the players. I want to see how Mr. Dolan was going to react. I want to see how Leon Rose is going to react, their group, and on top of the players, because you know one of them, all of them can get pissed at me and say, 'Screw this, we're done,' or you could try to keep fighting, stay even keeled, and try to figure it out, and that will only help you the further along you get in the playoffs. And right now, the amount of media and noise that's outside is something that the guys, most guys, haven't seen, and so trying to continue to ignore it, they're human, so they're going to hear some of it."
Tom Orsborn: Stephon Castle on Gregg Popovich speaking to team before it left for NYC: "Pretty much his message was just let the last two games go. It happened. They were very winnable games. We feel like we gave them those games. We got to let those go and focus on the next one."
Advertisement
Brown has coached some of the league’s biggest stars, including LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. He coached under some of the most venerated coaches, including Popovich and Steve Kerr. But now, for the first time in his career, the Larry O’Brien Trophy is within his grasp as the head of a locker room. Brown points to his time under Popovich as one of the biggest reasons he has arrived at this moment. “It was huge,” Brown said. “Pop — I talk about MSG being iconic, New York City being iconic — Pop is iconic, especially here in San Antonio. When you talk about the game of basketball, he’s iconic to everybody that enjoys the game of basketball.”
Run It Back: Derrick White says it's tough to pick a favorite favorite Gregg Popovich story from his time with the Spurs 💯 "Off the court he shows you he's human and cares about you as a human."
Part of that comes from some of those Spurs of old who are still lurking in the halls. Longtime coach Gregg Popovich has become significantly more present with the team in his “El Jefe” role, which has ranged from greeting the team at the airport to calling players after games to give them feedback. “I saw Pop right away when we landed,” Wembanyama said. “The emotion was really something I haven’t felt in a while. I don’t even know since when.” Horry sees it as Popovich’s new way of staying in the mix and putting his heart into the team. “This city is him, and he is this city,” Horry said. “And I think, for me, that’s his way of just being involved and having the opportunity to still put his thumbprint on the game.”