On Friday, the San Antonio Spurs introduced that Gregg Popovich will not coach the group and is transitioning to a full-time role as president of basketball operations.
Popovich, 76, ends his teaching tenure because the league’s profession wins chief with 1,422 regular-season victories and has 5 championships and an NBA record-tying three Coach of the 12 months awards. Enter Mitch Johnson, who was named performing head coach after Popovich suffered a mild stroke in November and can now take over teaching duties on a everlasting foundation.
We requested our NBA insiders the massive questions following the Spurs and Popovich’s resolution, together with the way it got here to this, what’s subsequent for the franchise and what Johnson brings to the function as San Antonio seems to open a contending window led by budding famous person Victor Wembanyama, guard De’Aaron Fox and newly minted Rookie of the 12 months Stephon Castle.
1. How did the Spurs and Pop come to this resolution?
The Spurs had been decided that Popovich had earned the correct to resolve when the time was proper to step away. Popovich was adamant that he would come again provided that he felt he may bodily do the job. He nonetheless had a need to educate, saying in recent times that he felt invigorated by working with younger gamers desperate to be taught.
However finally, Popovich determined he wanted to shift right into a supportive function with Johnson, whom he was very keen on and excessive on as his successor.
— Ramona Shelburne
2. What are individuals across the league saying about Pop’s transfer?
There’s aid and readability. Popovich was undoubtedly mulling persevering with to educate these previous few months, which is why his announcement that he would not return throughout the season did not say something about his future. However he’s NBA royalty and there was concern in regards to the legendary coach’s well being. After an incident recently that required a trip to the hospital, there was much more concern for Popovich’s well-being.
The Spurs have been left in a superb place by Popovich. He gained 5 titles on the sideline, however additionally it is honest to say certainly one of his best accomplishments was leaving the place with a clear contingency plan.
“He took a variety of losses over the previous couple of years that he did not should take; it was a really unselfish act,” one veteran league government informed ESPN. “The group is ready up for achievement. Sadly for him, he will not be on the sidelines for it, however the subsequent technology of the group has his fingerprints on it.”
Along with being prepared to take the toughest steps in a rebuild in his final years within the job, Popovich helped create and preserve a famend tradition. Many organizations over time tried to duplicate it by raiding Popovich’s entrance workplace and training employees. That tradition will keep it up lengthy after his departure from the place.
He additionally helped practice his alternative, as Johnson steadily acquired extra duties in his time on the bench. It wasn’t uncommon, even earlier than Johnson was named performing head coach, that Popovich would have him draw up late-game technique in huddles. Through the years there have been many assistants who had been seen as some undefined “head coach in ready” in San Antonio. That is as a result of Popovich believed in growing assistants like he developed younger gamers, by figuring out them and nurturing those that he felt had excessive potential.
If this job had been open, and it by no means was as a result of the Spurs dealt with all their enterprise cleanly and quietly, it might’ve been seen as the most effective within the league. As quickly as phrase acquired out that Popovich was stepping down as coach however staying on as president, the league knew Johnson was very probably going to be the choose. Generally conserving issues within the household within the NBA is problematic. In San Antonio, it is a secret sauce.
Popovich has at all times valued that and guarded that. And the league is aware of he is passing it on.
— Brian Windhorst
3. Who’s Mitch Johnson, and why did the Spurs give him the long-term job?
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New Orleans Pelicans level guard Dejounte Murray has informed ESPN on quite a few events that Johnson saved his life as a teen by bailing him out of jail and placing him on a strict lecturers and basketball program that helped the now-28-year-old matriculate to varsity and the NBA. So, when the Spurs began vetting Murray throughout the draft course of (2016), Johnson rapidly caught the group’s consideration for his teaching and communication acumen and introduced him aboard as an assistant with the membership’s G League affiliate Austin Spurs.
“One factor we mentioned when he got here and acquired me out of juvenile once I was 15 was, ‘We’re on this collectively,'” Murray informed ESPN of Johnson. “It was like, we’ll put in all this damned work and we’ll see the place the work takes us. So, even after we acquired into the league, we by no means knew all this stuff had been going to occur or how issues would occur. Nevertheless it was like, we each put the work in. The remaining goes to be historical past.”
Johnson superior rapidly by the group and has spent the previous six seasons as an assistant underneath Popovich, together with 5 years on the entrance of the bench after a 2020 promotion.
The son of former two-time NBA All-Star and 1979 champion John “J.J.” Johnson, Mitch Johnson was an achieved participant in highschool (two state championships at O’Dea Excessive College in Seattle, the place he averaged 22 factors and eight assists as a senior) and faculty at Stanford, the place he was a four-year starter enjoying alongside Brook Lopez, Robin Lopez and Landry Fields. Brook Lopez informed ESPN that in faculty, they nicknamed Johnson “Maestro” as a result of “the way in which he conducts and runs the present.”
“Seeing him within the place he is in now is just not a shock. He belongs there,” Lopez added. “[He’s] such an clever basketball participant, the best basketball IQ I’ve ever performed with or been round.”
Inside the Spurs group, Johnson impressed Popovich, Spurs CEO RC Buford and GM Brian Wright with the way in which he navigated a tumultuous season within the wake of Popovich’s stroke and the membership shelving Wembanyama as a consequence of a blood clot issue in his shoulder. Johnson’s management by no means wavered in hostile conditions throughout weeklong journeys to New York and Paris, to not point out Los Angeles throughout the wildfires. Johnson held gamers accountable.
His phrases at all times resonated within the locker room. San Antonio’s gamers persistently competed for Johnson, and it did not go unnoticed among the many franchise’s decision-makers.
“I belief the group,” Wembanyama mentioned. “I additionally belief Mitch to develop into that function. I feel we’re in good fingers supporting one another all through the group.”
— Michael C. Wright
4. What’s going to the offseason appear like in San Antonio?
Getting readability at head coach was the highest precedence on the Spurs’ to-do record.
The main focus now shifts to the lottery. The Spurs not solely have their very own first-round choose but additionally a primary from Atlanta. (San Antonio has a 6% probability of shifting up from No. 8 to the highest spot, whereas Atlanta’s is 0.7%.) As for the roster, 10 gamers are underneath contract, led by back-to-back Rookies of the 12 months in Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle.
The commerce for Fox nonetheless has San Antonio positioned to make one other huge swing if a participant reminiscent of Kevin Durant or Giannis Antetokounmpo turns into accessible this summer time. The Spurs have the correct to swap with Atlanta subsequent 12 months after which have the Hawks’ unprotected first-round choose in 2027. In total, they have six firsts in the next eight years, a number of years of choose swaps and 17 seconds. Additionally they have the sizable contracts of Devin Vassell, Harrison Barnes and Keldon Johnson.
One date to circle on the Spurs’ calendar is Aug. 3. That’s the first day Fox can signal a four-year $229 million max extension. And keep watch over Chris Paul‘s future. After signing a one-year deal final offseason, Paul performed all 82 video games for the second time in his profession and is ready to enter free company.
— Bobby Marks
5. What are the expectations for San Antonio subsequent season?
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The 2026 postseason is an affordable expectation, and falling wanting the playoffs is perhaps one thing of a disappointment. The Spurs had been 21-25 this season within the 46 video games Wembanyama performed, simply 5 of which got here alongside Fox between San Antonio’s blockbuster midseason commerce and Wembanyama being sidelined with deep vein thrombosis.
Sluggish-playing Wembanyama’s improvement allowed the Spurs so as to add Citadel with the No. 4 choose final June and one other lottery choose this 12 months, however with the arrival of Fox and the long run picks San Antonio has stockpiled, now’s the time to start out getting these younger gamers expertise in high-intensity video games.
Solely Kobe Bryant, Luka Doncic, Dwight Howard and LeBron James have been voted All-NBA earlier than age 21.5, one thing Wembanyama was on monitor to attain earlier than falling wanting the 65-game minimal as a consequence of his absence. All of these gamers made their playoff debuts by their third seasons within the league, with Howard and James each breaking by in 12 months 3.
The largest impediment to the Spurs making the playoffs is the loaded Western Convention, the place no playoff group gained fewer than 48 video games this season. There is not any apparent contender to fall out of the playoffs, however the identical was true final season, but the Houston Rockets and Memphis Grizzlies managed to interrupt into the highest eight, with the Pelicans and Phoenix Suns unexpectedly falling out.
At a minimal, San Antonio ought to be capable of crack the play-in event for the primary time since 2022. The Spurs would have had an opportunity at claiming the tenth seed this season had Wembanyama stayed wholesome. However the purpose must be reaching the West’s prime six, one thing San Antonio final did in 2019 — remarkably, the NBA’s second-longest lively playoff drought after the lowly Charlotte Hornets.
— Kevin Pelton
