No matter how great a team is built in the NBA, to win games, an equally great coach needs to be at the helm of the said team. Over the years, we have seen many legendary coaches do that job to absolute perfection.
Speaking of such coaches, San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich is unarguably one of the best ever to assume the role. He joined the Spurs back during the 1988-89 NBA season as an assistant coach.
After six seasons of serving in that role, Popovich assumed the role of head coach of the SAS. To this date, he is still serving as the head coach of the team and during his stint, he has won several NBA Championships. To be precise, he has led the team to silverware 5 times.
Apart from being a successful head coach during the playoffs, Popovich is simply one of the best during the regular season as well. In fact, with his recent win over the Houston Rockets, he won the 1330th game of his career.
An NBA fan on Reddit noticed it and combined it with his playoff wins too. So combining the two statistics, Gregg Popovich has reached 1500 victories in total.
Gregg Popovich is the first coach in NBA history with 1,500 wins, regular season and playoffs. pic.twitter.com/3cjPGu45NH
— StatMuse (@statmuse) February 5, 2022
He is the first and only NBA head coach to reach this number. It is a true testament to his ability to reach this record, which will most likely be safe for a long time.
Popovich is truly a legendary coach and even great coaches like Steve Kerr have praised him. Kerr revealed what the coaching staff is doing at the Golden State Warriors is mostly based on what he learned from Pop.
When Pop retires from his duties as a head coach, it will be a truly memorable day for Spurs fans. He has done a lot for the franchise. But even he is struggling to help the current Spurs team win games.
So far this season, the Spurs are just 12th in the Western Conference with a record of 20-34. Keeping that in mind, one might wonder will Pop retire after this season? There is no way to tell that for sure, but it is definitely a possibility.
