Gregg Popovich is stepping away from coaching, but will remain with the San Antonio Spurs as team president, according to ESPN. The news comes after Popovich missed most of the 2024-25 season after suffering a stroke in November. The Spurs legend is one of the greatest coaches in NBA history. In 29 seasons holding San Antonio’s top job, Popovich won an NBA record 1,422 regular-season games. He is a five-time NBA champion and six-time NBA finalist. Only Phil Jackson and Pat Riley have won more playoff games, and only Jackson and Red Auerbach have won more championships in the NBA.
On Nov. 2, 2024, Popovich reportedly experienced a health issue and immediately took a leave of absence. It was later revealed that Popovich had experienced a mild stroke, and he ultimately did not return to the bench this season. Mitch Johnson took over as the interim coach in his stead, but the Spurs reportedly allowed Popovich time and space to make his own decision about his future. Now, despite a five-year extension he signed in 2023, one of the true icons of the coaching industry has ended his legendary career on the sidelines.
Popovich’s road to the Hall of Fame was fairly unorthodox even by coaching standards. After playing for Air Force and serving five years of active duty with the Armed Forces Basketball Team, Popovich began his coaching career at his alma mater before eventually taking over as the head coach of Pomona-Pitzer. He remained there for almost a decade before taking his first NBA jobs as an assistant coach, first with the Spurs, and then with the Golden State Warriors.
His return to the Spurs did not come as a coach, but rather, as the general manager in 1994. In 1996, however, he fired head coach Bob Hill and took the job himself. San Antonio struggled to 20-62 record without star center David Robinson, but won the 1997 draft lottery, picked Tim Duncan, and the rest was history. Popovich won his first NBA championship soon after in 1999.
With Robinson aging, though, he needed to get creative in how he built a long-term core around Duncan. To do so, he brought the Spurs to the forefront of the international basketball community by drafting Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili to serve as backcourt. The Spurs would go on to bring in several other well-known international players, including, most recently, French super-prospect Victor Wembanyama, but none meant as much to Popovich as Parker and Ginobili. The trio of Parker, Ginobili and Duncan were all together alongside Popovich for San Antonio’s next four titles, and all four are now in the Hall of Fame.
In addition to his historic NBA resume, the former Air Force standout represented his country as the head coach for Team USA in the 2019 FIBA World Cup and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. While Team USA finished in seventh in the World Cup, it came back to win gold in Tokyo with a dramatic 87-82 victory over France. He was succeeded with Team USA by his former backup point guard in San Antonio, Steve Kerr.
With Popovich stepping down, one of the most desirable head coaching jobs in all of basketball is officially open. The next San Antonio coach will get to work with Wembanyama as he enters his prime, and that means almost certain championship contention. There will be no shortage of interested candidates for the position, and that may even include head coaches on other teams. After all, a staggering number of current NBA head coaches were plucked off of the Popovich tree.
Four of the 29 other coaches to open this season with top jobs were former assistants under Popovich in San Antonio: Mike Budenholzer, Ime Udoka, Mike Brown and Will Hardy. Two more, Taylor Jenkins and Quin Snyder, were the head coach of San Antonio’s G-League affiliate, the Austin Spurs (or, as they were known at the time, the Austin Toros). Two more, Doc Rivers and Steve Kerr, played for Popovich in San Antonio, and of the 21 coaches we haven’t covered, 11 more have at some point worked as an assistant under one of those first eight. It’s harder to find a team whose coaching staff wasn’t influenced by Popovich in some significant way than ones that were.
The best available coaches, and likely several unavailable ones, will now jockey for the job that Popovich held for nearly three decades. While a legend like him can’t truly be replaced, he has left the Spurs in a far better place than he found them: a proven winner with an impeccable track record that has everything it needs to win moving forward if it finds an appropriate successor.
