The Tao Of Gregg Popovich

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The Tao of San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich
Why America Is in Love With the NBA's Brilliant, Crabby Uncle

By JASON GAY
Updated May 12, 2014 9:16 a.m. ET




Longtime San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich Getty Images



At the moment, the San Antonio Spurs hold a three-games-to-none edge over the Portland Trail Blazers in the NBA's Western Conference semifinals, which continue Monday evening in Oregon. Barring an astonishing comeback by the likable and talented Blazers, the Spurs are poised to win the series and move on to the conference finals.

Oh, who are we kidding: The Spurs are going to win the series and move on to the conference finals.

So let's talk about the San Antonio coach, Gregg Popovich. Here are some essential numbers on Popovich: 65 years old, 18 seasons, 17 playoff appearances, 17 consecutive winning seasons, three G's in the first name. Nine hundred and sixty-seven regular-season wins against 443 losses, winning percentage of .686, third-best in league history. One-hundred and forty wins in the playoffs, three coach-of-the-year honors, including this season, and then the big one: four world championships.

That's the data—and it's excellent, among basketball's best ever.



Popovich with David Robinson, left, and President Clinton at the White House in 1999. Getty Images


Still, that's not the reason why America adores Popovich. Popovich feels the love because Popovich is basketball's brilliant crabby uncle—and it's fun to love what might not love you back. In a sports era thick with self-promoters and self-mythologizers, Popovich has no interest in playing cute or dabbling in small talk. During interviews, he's as straightforward as a sledgehammer through drywall.

Popovich talk is straight talk to the extreme; bluntness as performance art. If words are cheap, he is the Titan of Terse. "A lot of the questions he gets," said former Spur Malik Rose, "he feels the answers are pretty obvious."

Then there's Popovich's signature look: Popovich Face. During games, Popovich will bear the look of an airline passenger who has just experienced something substandard about the flight, and cannot wait, when the plane lands, to write a brief but merciless letter to the airline. Stern-eyed and sometimes open-mouthed, Popovich Face is not exactly a look of disgust. It's more of a measured disdain.

And yet this is a coach who has had more prolonged NBA success than anyone coaching in the league. Who has, in partnership with San Antonio's front office, cracked the difficult formula for preserving aged superstars while simultaneously developing his team's future. Who consistently has done it his way—even if it means unashamedly knocking heads with the boardroom of the NBA.

"He's demanding but he's fair—and this is coming from somebody who spent considerable time in his doghouse," said Rose, who was part of Spurs title teams in 1999 and 2003. "He doesn't put on airs. He's not fake. He's 100% real."

Rose describes a coach who remembers the names of player spouses and children and details from home. "Still, to this day, he asks how my mother is doing," he said. "He's very in tune to his emotional side."

And Popovich's Spurs do it over and over and over. The titles may be intermittent, but the winning culture is not. The hardest thing in sports is not achieving success but sustaining it; adapting to new competition and styles while accommodating for natural decline. The Spurs are like a pair of shoes you bought 20 years ago and can't believe how good they still are. With Popovich as coach, Spurs star Tim Duncan won his first NBA title during Bill Clinton's second term.

And Clinton is a fan.

"Coach Popovich is a great coach and a good man," President Clinton said in a statement to the Journal. "Year in and year out the Spurs keep winning, regardless of injuries, retirements, trades, and the talent of their opponents. Gregg's relationship to his players and his ability to get them to play as a real team are tributes to his extraordinary combination of leadership and humanity."

Earlier this year, Popovich went to lunch in San Antonio with a group that included Clinton, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros and current San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro. "His personality and his attitude on the court match this city very well," said Castro. "Unassuming but good character, not flashy but effective. People here really appreciate that."

The country may be falling hard at the moment, but San Antonio has long known the Popovich behind the Popovich Face. He revealed it in an unguarded moment a couple of weeks ago during an on-court interview with Craig Sager Jr. , son of TNT sideline reporter Craig Sager, who has raised Popovich's perfunctory Q&As to destination television. At the moment, the elder Sager was undergoing treatment for leukemia, and his son was standing in. After a couple of gentle exchanges on San Antonio's playoff game with Dallas, Popovich turned to Sager Jr. with a compliment. "You did a great job," Popovich said. "But I'd rather have your Dad standing here."

Then the coach looked square into the camera and addressed the elder Sager himself. "We want your fanny back on the court," he said. He added impishly: "And I promise I'll be nice."

This was the Popovich that fans have come to adore—the coach who gets it, who knows what's important, who may not say a lot, but seems to always say the right thing. San Antonio is rolling in the playoffs once more, and some day Gregg Popovich will explain how he managed to do this for so long. He'll just probably do it in 10 words or less.



bob
MY NOTE:  Out with the Zen Master and in with the Titan of Tao!  Even back when Doc was here and we were firing on all 8, I think we all knew that, as good as Doc was getting all the egos on the 2008 team to work together, he was still #2 at best.  Pop is absolutely "Red-like" in how he has created the winning culture in little San Antonio and has been able to maintain the team's competitiveness over more than one team iteration.  And, be honest, isn't disdain more fun than smug? There's just something that makes me giggle when I see someone look at someone else like they're a complete idiot when they ask a dumb question. It may be rude, but it's funny.


.

After Red, Pop is definitely the second-best coach in the history of the NBA. And the best coach in the past two decades.

Sam

Not much of a Phil Jackson fan, Sam? I agree with you above. Just wondering where you put Phil.

It's honestly difficult to say, D. I've never really associated Phil with going through a period in which he was personally tested in terms of being a major catalyst for a giant leap forward by his team. He has invariably been presented with a team that had great potential, and he's done okay in helping them achieve that potential. I suppose he's had to deal with some sizable egos in the process, and he seemed to fare pretty well there, if you don't count Kobe and Shaq. It's not always an easy thing to stay on top, even if you have the best lineup in the league, so I guess his motivational skills must be acceptable.

But I just get the feeling that he's been fortunate to live somewhat of a dilitant's life as a coach. Gifted with a lot of large waves on whose crests he could ride, and doing an excellent job of not being swamped in the process.

I don't know....maybe Bill Fitch territory as a coach. I'm not comparing the styles or situations of the two (heaven forbid), simply conjecturing at the stature I feel each of them rightfully deserves.

I know people will say that I don't like Phil because I associate him with the Lakers. (Frankly I believe he did a better job with the Bulls.) I don't actually dislike him; he's just sort of an also ran (but just out of the money) in my most objective opinion because he never suffered through an extended imperative to become that overachieving, dynamic catalyst. But he surely did have a lot of great players; that's something no one can debate.

Sam

The way the game is now, it's impossible to win without a roster that's absolutely loaded. Where would Erik Spoelstra be without Lebron, Wade, and Bosh? He was gift-wrapped the perfect coaching situation. He would have just as many, if not more losses than Stevens. The Spurs are the only team that come to mind as an exception to the rule.

Phil had some of the best players ever. He should have rings to show for the talent he was coaching. Otherwise, he'd be looked at as a terrible coach that couldn't win with the greatest talent.



KJ