Always in the present, Gregg Popovich wonders why we insist on asking about his future
There will come a time when age actually begins to matter for the longtime Spurs head coach, but it sure doesn't feel like that time is now.
DALLAS — Attempting to read the tea leaves has felt like an exercise in futility for years now. By the measure of any normal human, Gregg Popovich should at least be considering retirement, but he doesn’t even seem to be interested in the question. Or, if he is, he’s doing a hell of a job hiding it. Because nobody seems to have an answer.
On Sunday, when asked if he’s going to be the Spurs’ head coach next season, Pop replied, “I have a game tonight. That’s all I care about.”
Last year, the retort was even more to the point when lightly pressed about his future. “That question is inappropriate,” he said sternly following his team’s Play-In loss to the New Orleans Pelicans.
And while Pop finds plenty of joy in messing with the media at times, and even testing the limits in creating uncomfortable situations, the slightly offended tone attached to each short response felt real. He doesn’t seem to think the question should be asked; and despite surely knowing it’s coming this time of the season — every single year — he doesn’t get out in front and shut it down. It’s like he’s challenging someone to ask. It’s either that, or he genuinely can’t understand why anyone would.
To him, this is just the end of his 27th season. Or as he put it Sunday, “20 years, or 23 years, or someone said 25 years the other day. I don’t count.” It’s just business as usual.
“I don’t think about future, past, legacy — I think about today, and what kind of fun I’m going to have this summer, in addition to doing the normal Las Vegas Summer League, the draft, ping-pong balls, that kind of stuff,” Pop said. “Travel, restaurants, walking through cities like New York, and you’re gonna ask me about whether I should retire?”
And the reality is, he hasn’t given anyone reason to think he should call it quits. Age is the only reason we ask, the only reason we wonder. That’s it. In a vacuum, Popovich is fully intact in every important facet, which is admittedly a strange way — and probably a disrespectful way — to describe the greatest NBA coach of all time who, by the way, still has a job. Even if it has a slightly different description these days.
“He’s dancing to the music in the gym, he’s always cracking jokes, teaching us about real-world stuff and putting the whole basketball thing in perspective,” Tre Jones said. “He’s doing everything, he’s completely sharp and on top of everything, his energy is always there no matter what — he’s always completely present, trying to do everything he can to help us and be there with us.”
Popovich’s ability to relate to young men more than 50 years his junior has been as admirable as it’s been masterful. Building real interpersonal relationships with people he’s often just met and welcomed into his home away from home is a skill many humans never learn, and few if any in sports have demonstrated an aptitude for meeting a player where he is quite like Pop.
And it isn’t just for the job. It’s for the people he’s about to coach, or work alongside. It’s for their families as well. He believes it’s that part of the equation — the nurturing of the human condition — that leads to organizational success, and he understands these baby Spurs need to establish that foundation for this franchise to have even a remote chance of returning to what it once was.
“I think everyone feels [Pop still loves doing this]. I think everyone knows, he's done everything he needs, but I think he's still excited to coach us,” Jeremy Sochan said. “He teaches us so much, and I think he likes that. I personally think he's really engaged with us.
“We'll see what happens, but its been great.”
While the noble pursuit of setting this organization up for a successful future before he eventually retires is a storyline made for the movies, there’s also the likelihood Pop simply can’t quit this thing that’s made up much of his life for these last 27 years and beyond.
He’s described coaches like him as “sick puppies” in the past, because for some reason they appreciate the torture that accompanies the work. So why keep coaching? The answer might be simple.
“Because I’m stupid. There’s nothing else I can do. Got no skills whatsoever,” he told reporters last week in Sacramento. “I’ve been playing basketball since the early days in East Chicago and it’s what I’ve done all my life, so it seems like I should stick with what I know.”
It’s also just easy to fall in love with a career like this. There aren’t many coaches in the world who enter the profession expecting to achieve the kind of success the coach of the Spurs has seen over the years, and it’s arguable not a one has ever planned on building the reputation and garnering the level of respect Popovich has.
He’s accomplished all there is to accomplish, and he’s built a sort of empire that will one day be passed on, but never quite replicated. And he doesn’t expect it to be. I mean, how could it be? What San Antonio was fortunate enough to build had as much to do with luck as it did shrewd management. There are franchises with more championship trophies, but it’s difficult to argue there’s a single one that benefited more from the perfect alignment of the stars.
“I just know I’ve been the beneficiary of serendipity to a max degree. And that goes from ownership on down. I’m not sure anybody’s had it better than I’ve had it in all those respects,” Pop said. “So I’m just grateful for the good fortune that I’ve had personally, and just in awe of all the relationships I’ve been able to develop, with players, coaches, their kids, and seeing them when you go to different cities.
“You see all these people. People who were in the film room at the bottom, then at the head of the film room, then they went someplace else to be behind the bench, then went over here and became a head coach. Whatever it might be,” he continued. “That’s the real satisfaction and thrill of the years I’ve been coaching.”
Popovich seems more than willing to keep this going, to keep building on that feeling and those memories. But that’s now, following a 138-117 win over the Mavericks in Dallas to end the season. It could all change tomorrow, or a week from now, or next month. Living in the present means there’s always potential for change from one tick of the clock to the next.
Still, perhaps in turn it’s time we start meeting Pop in that present. In the place where he resides. There isn’t a better teacher in all of sports — in both the art of basketball, and of life — and neither he nor his pupils are tired of the coursework.
But until that time comes when he’s ready for it to end, and even once it finally does, there’s a ton of work to do in San Antonio. Players start their summer programs in May, and that sick puppy might just be there in the gym when they return.
Ready for another round.
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