Gregg Popovich, by the numbers: The legendary career of the longtime Spurs coach

Gregg Popovich, the winningest head coach in NBA history, stepped down from the helm of the San Antonio Spurs on Friday, ceding the bench to longtime assistant Mitch Johnson. Popovich suffered a stroke in November and had been on indefinite leave ever since. He will now serve as team president.

Popovich’s coaching tree, which has grown over 29 seasons in San Antonio, quite literally extends its branches to every corner of the NBA. Here’s a look at Pop’s legendary coaching career by the numbers:

.371

Pop’s winning percentage at Pomona-Pitzer

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Popovich’s career record at Pomona-Pitzer (76-129) in California may not look impressive, but in 1979 he took over a program for the combined colleges of Pomona and Pitzer, a team that had not won its conference since the early 1900s, and by 1986 he guided the Sagehens to their first NCAA Division III tournament berth.

It is here where on sabbatical for the 1986-87 season Popovich joined the University of Kansas as a volunteer assistant under Larry Brown. That relationship paved Popovich’s path to the NBA, where he first served as an assistant to Brown in 1988.

“I loved it. Division III is a great level of basketball. The schools are all academically oriented at that level, all the priorities are in line with the students and the athletes, and if you win a game or lose a game, it’s not the end of the world. Which is the way it should be in normal life, you know.” — Popovich

.577

Pop’s shooting percentage at the 1972 U.S. Olympic basketball trials

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Following his playing career at the Air Force Academy, where he famously considered a career at the Central Intelligence Agency during his five years of active service, Popovich toured for the U.S. Armed Forces, serving as captain of the 1972 team that captured an Amateur Athletic Union championship.

Accepting an invitation from Bobby Knight to the 1972 U.S. Olympic basketball trials, Popovich shot 57.7% from the floor for the session, according to a member of the selection committee, via Jackie MacMullan. He was reportedly among the team’s final cuts, ceding his Olympic spot to Bobby Jones and Kevin Joyce.

“I was devastated when I didn’t make it, ’cause anybody would be. They put me on an alternate team, we went to Brazil and Argentina and partied our asses off. It was a lot of fun. We probably lost every game, I don’t know. But that’s the truth. I was young and foolish, and it wasn’t the real team.” — Popovich

1

Gold medal as head coach of the 2020 U.S. Olympic team

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Popovich’s Olympic redemption came nearly 50 years later, when he was named head coach of Team USA. He had previously served as an assistant under Brown at the 2004 Athens Olympics, where the U.S. logged a disappointing bronze-medal finish. In his first global competition, the 2019 FIBA World Cup, the U.S. placed seventh, its worst-ever finish in international competition. Team USA rebounded at the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, overcoming another pool-play loss to deliver Pop’s gold medal.

“It’s impossible to separate it if you have been in the military. I’ve had classmates that have fought in wars — I have not — and some of them are no longer with us. You get an appreciation for people who have sacrificed. So when you have an opportunity to do this for your country, it’s impossible to say no. I love being part of it.” — Popovich

3.024%

Odds of winning the David Robinson, Tim Duncan and Victor Wembanyama draft lotteries

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A decade into the career of the franchise’s first No. 1 overall pick, David Robinson, San Antonio started the season 3-15, as Robinson recovered from a back injury. Popovich, then the general manager of the Spurs, fired head coach Bob Hill and named himself as his replacement. Six games later, Robinson broke his left foot, and Popovich directed the tank into the 1997 draft lottery, where Tim Duncan awaited as the prize.

Popovich was reportedly in a food tent next door to the NBA’s announcement in Secaucus, New Jersey, where the Spurs won the rights to Duncan, “a burger in one hand and a beer in the other.” Twenty-six years later, when Popovich’s Spurs won the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes, he was asleep on a flight to Italy.

In between? Well …

5-1

Popovich’s record in the NBA Finals

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In between, Popovich and Duncan led the Spurs to five championships together over a 19-year span in which small-market San Antonio established itself as the class of the NBA. They went toe-to-toe with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant’s Lakers, outlasting them to win titles in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007.

Their sustained greatness carried into the 2010s, when they won another in 2014, long after Bryant had ceded the face of the league to LeBron James. If not for Ray Allen’s shot to win Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals, Popovich might have been 6-0 in the championship series, the Michael Jordan of coaches. As it is, he is certainly on the NBA’s Mount Rushmore, along with Red Auerbach, Pat Riley and Phil Jackson.

7

The number of Hall of Fame players Popovich has coached

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In addition to Robinson and Duncan, Popovich developed Manu Ginóbili and Tony Parker, two steals late in the draft, into Hall of Fame talents. Together Duncan, Ginóbili and Parker won four championships. Their 575 regular-season and 126 playoff games wins make them one of the best trios in NBA history.

Popovich also coached Hall of Famers Dominique Wilkins, Tracy McGrady and Pau Gasol late in their careers. Whenever Kawhi Leonard retires, he will make for an eighth Hall of Famer under Popovich’s tutelage. Leonard’s development propelled Duncan, Ginóbili and Parker to their fourth championship.

In all of their absences now is Wembanyama, the next hope of a ninth Hall of Famer for Popovich.

“There’s one word to describe why I’m here, and that’s ‘Duh,’ those guys.” — Popovich

22

Seasons with consecutive playoff appearances

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From his first full season as head coach, through Duncan’s 19-year career, six years into the Leonard era, Popovich’s streak of consecutive playoff appearances stretched to an NBA-record 22. In that span the Spurs logged nine trips to the Western Conference finals and the equivalent of 20 consecutive 50-win seasons.

“It means a lot to a lot of people probably, but I don’t dwell on the past. That stuff’s totally [not] important; what’s important is the moment you do what you’ve got to do then you move on, but looking at the past doesn’t do much good. Any success we’ve had has been because we’ve had some great players.” — Popovich

67

Pop’s most wins in a regular season (2015-16)

In Duncan’s last season, when Leonard had developed into a perennial MVP candidate, Popovich may have enjoyed his finest coaching season. Certainly his most unheralded. In 2015-16 the Spurs became the 12th team in NBA history to win 67 games, overshadowed by the Warriors’ record-setting 73-win campaign.

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The Spurs had those Warriors on the ropes in Game 1 of the 2016 Western Conference finals when Leonard suffered an ankle injury that cost him and San Antonio the remainder of the series. It was a testament to the culture Popovich had established that, long after Duncan, Ginóbili and Parker had played through their primes, the dynasty was still alive. It was the culmination of Pop’s philosophy …

78-77

Final score of a title-clinching Game 5 of the 1999 NBA Finals

It was on the backs of a terrifying defense — Robinson and Duncan, specifically — that the Spurs won their first championship in a lockout-shortened season, holding the New York Knicks to an average of 79.8 points per game in the 1999 NBA Finals. From 1997-2008, the Spurs never owned a defensive rating ranked lower than third. Their defense became so good that the lower scores became downright boring.

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But it was Spurs basketball. It was defensive-minded basketball. It was winning basketball.

“We were on the precipice of going off a cliff, but then we won a championship. You couldn’t make up the things that happened. It was a crazy year.” — longtime NBA coach Mike Budenholzer

110-95

Final score of a title-clinching Game 5 of the 2014 NBA Finals

By 2014, San Antonio’s offense had become some of the most beautiful basketball we have ever seen. With an international flavor, including Boris Diaw, Marco Belinelli and Patty Mills, the Spurs moved the ball with a mission, passing up good shots for great ones. And with that they decimated James’ defending champion Miami Heat in the 2014 Finals in five games, avenging Allen’s shot and their 2013 Finals loss.

A year in the making, Popovich had fueled San Antonio’s fire with game film of Games 6 and 7 of those 2013 Finals, challenging them to correct mistakes that had stood between them and a fifth title. They did.

“It’s on us to see what we can do to get back into that same position. Can we or can’t we? We may, we may not. I have no clue. But we can put out the effort both mentally and physically to have the best shot to get there. And that’s what guided us the whole year, that philosophy. We didn’t worry about how many wins. We just worried about being healthy and continuing to improve on all the things that we saw in Games 6 and 7. And to their credit, they showed the fortitude to do that.” — Popovich

1,589

Wins in the regular season and playoffs (most in NBA history)

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On March 11, 2022, Popovich broke old friend Don Nelson’s all-time coaching wins record, logging his 1,336th career victory. (Popovich served as an assistant under Nelson on the Warriors from 1992-94.) He has since stretched that record to 1,419. With 170 career playoff victories — third-most in history, behind Jackson and Riley, Popovich has won a total of 1,589 games, more than anyone else ever.