Years after the departures of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, and Kawhi Leonard, the San Antonio Spurs have found themselves in the unfamiliar position of being a laughingstock.
It has led to some whispers that head coach Gregg Popovich, the 74-year-old who is about to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, may retire soon.
But he is remaining put, as he has just received a new five-year contract to remain their head coach.
Popovich has also served as the Spurs’ President of Basketball Operations and will continue to do so, and as Adrian Wojnarowski points out, even if Popovich does decide to retire from coaching soon, he could still honor the entirety of his new contract.
Popovich is President of Basketball Operations and head coach, so it’s possible his new deal allows him to earn out the contract even if he doesn’t coach the full five years of the deal. https://t.co/B5ox56DfO6
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 8, 2023
Popovich, who served five years in the Air Force, started out with the Spurs as an assistant coach under his good friend Larry Brown in the late 1980s.
After spending two years with the Golden State Warriors, he came back to San Antonio for the 1994-95 season as their general manager and vice president of basketball operations, and he also became their head coach early in the 1996-97 campaign.
He got extremely lucky, as David Robinson missed most of that season with an injury, leading to the team landing the No. 1 pick in the 1997 draft, which it used on Tim Duncan.
Duncan joined a team that was already a contender when healthy, and it won five NBA championships over the next 17 seasons.
Popovich will now have the honor of coaching the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft, Victor Wembanyama, and he will have the benefit of all his years coaching Duncan as he looks to mold the French phenom into a superstar while making the Spurs winners again.
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Analyst Says Fans Need To Settle Down About Victor Wembanyama’s Debut