Gregg Popovich

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Basketball player
Gregg Popovich
Gregg Popovich
Player information
Full name Gregg Charles Popovich
birthday 28th January 1949 (age 71)
place of birth East Chicago, Indiana , United States
college United States Air Force Academy
Club information
society San Antonio Spurs ( Head Coach )
league NBA
Clubs as active
1966–1970 United States Air Force AcademyUnited StatesUnited States
Clubs as coaches
1973–1979 Air Force ( NCAA I) (assistant) 1979–1987 Pomona-Pitzer (NCAA III) 1988–1992 San Antonio Spurs (assistant) 1992–1994 Golden State Warriors (assistant) 1996– San Antonio Spurs United StatesUnited States
United StatesUnited States
United StatesUnited States
United StatesUnited States
0000 United StatesUnited States
National team as coach
2018– United States0000 United StatesUnited States

Gregg Charles Popovich (born January 28, 1949 in East Chicago , Indiana ) is an American basketball coach . He has coached the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA since 1996 and has also held the presidency of the operating company with responsibility for basketball since 2008. He has also been the coach of the United States national team since 2018 .

Popovich is considered to be one of the most successful coaches in the history of the league and tops the list of coaches with the most wins in league history (regular season and playoffs ). In his career, he won five NBA titles with the Spurs and three times the NBA Coach of the Year award . It is often called "Coach Pop" or simply "Pop".

Training and first coaching stations

Popovich, whose mother came from Croatia and whose father came from Serbia , first grew up in East Chicago (Indiana), after the separation of his parents he moved with his mother within Indiana to Merrillville. He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1970 , where he also played on the basketball team for four years, with a degree in Soviet Studies . As a senior (fourth season) he was the team captain and the best point collector. After graduating, Popovich served in the military for another five years. During this time he traveled through Eastern Europe and what was then the Soviet Union as a member of the US Armed Forces basketball selection .

In 1973 Popovich returned to the Air Force Academy as an assistant coach . He spent six years in which he also at the University of Denver 's master took off in physical education (physical education) and sports science.

In 1979 he was appointed head coach of Pomona-Pitzer in Claremont, California , where he spent the next eight years. In 1985/86 he led the team to the first Conference Championship in 68 years and the NCAA Division III Tournament .

NBA career

Gregg Popovich moved to the NBA in July 1988, where he began working for the San Antonio Spurs as an assistant coach under Larry Brown . In the summer of 1992 he moved to the coaching staff of the Golden State Warriors from head coach Don Nelson .

On May 31, 1994, Popovich became executive vice president of basketball operations and general manager of the San Antonio Spurs . On July 1, 2002, he handed over these offices to RC Buford .

Since 1996 he has been the head coach of the Spurs and led them to five NBA championships in 1999 , 2003 , 2005 , 2007 and 2014 . In the season 2002/03 , 2011/12 and 2013/14 season he became the coach of the year selected. On March 2, 2006, he celebrated his 500th victory as coach of Spurs against the Dallas Mavericks (with 245 defeats). In July 2008, in addition to his coaching duties, he became president of the operating company Spurs Sports & Entertainment with responsibility for basketball.

With a win rate of 68.5% (1022 wins to 470 losses, as of October 19, 2015) Popovich is one of the most successful coaches in NBA history. Among other things, he led the Spurs 16 seasons in a row to 50 or more wins. This exceeded the longest series of its kind ( Los Angeles Lakers between 1979/80 and 1990/91). In addition, the Spurs made it into the NBA playoffs for the nineteenth time in a row in the 2015/16 season , making it the longest current series in the NBA.

Gregg Popovich celebrated his 1000th victory as an NBA coach on February 9, 2015 with a 95:93 victory for Spurs against the Indiana Pacers (with 462 defeats). Popovich is the ninth NBA coach to do so. In addition, he is only the second coach after Jerry Sloan (from 1988 to 2011 with the Utah Jazz ), who did this with just one franchise .

On March 19, 2016, he won at home for the 33rd time in a row against the Golden State Warriors . So he left both Pat Riley (1981-2001, against the Kings) and Rick Adelman (1990-2009, against the Nuggets), who each managed 32 times in a row to beat a certain team behind.

Popovich also worked as an assistant coach for the US national team from 2002 to 2004 (for example at the 2002 World Championships , the 2003 Olympic qualification tournament and the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens). In 2016, Popovich took over the US men's selection as coach. After Jeff Van Gundy was appointed coach of the selection for the 2017 American Basketball Championship and qualification for the 2019 World Basketball Championship , Popovich was reinstated as a coach from the time the World Championship was held. In October 2015, he was appointed head coach of the US national team as the successor to Mike Krzyzewski for the period 2017-2020 . At the 2019 World Cup, Popovich had to do without many of the best NBA players and finished seventh in the tournament with the team.

In the NBA, his team allowed the fewest points in the league in six years. This is the only record among coaches (five times each: Red Holzman and Mike Fratello ).

Popovich has won the most NBA regular season and postseason wins . After drawing level with Lenny Wilkens in Dirk Nowitzki's farewell game on April 10, 2019 , he overtook him three days later in the playoff win against the higher-seeded Denver Nuggets with win 1413.

Game system and coaching style

Unlike many of his coaching colleagues, Popovich is considered a very variable coach. Instead of building his own system over the years, he constantly adapts the way his teams play to the available players. He coaches situation-related and focuses on the long-term development of his players. His often impulsive manner on the sidelines is just as well known as his interviews before, during or after the games, which he often deals with with just a few words and in which he sometimes openly expresses his aversion to questions from reporters.

Private

Gregg Popovich and his wife Erin, who died in 2018, have two children and two grandchildren.

Web links

Commons : Gregg Popovich  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Adrian Wojnarowski: 'Pop' art. ( Memento from July 14, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Archived from Yahoo! website; New York City, NY, June 10, 2007. Retrieved April 14, 2020 (in English).
  2. ↑ About. In: nba.com/spurs. Retrieved June 25, 2020 .
  3. ↑ NBA Playoffs 2019: Spurs' Gregg Popovich becomes winningest coach in NBA history. Retrieved April 22, 2020 (English).
  4. ^ Jeff McDonald: Popovich's steel roots built solid foundation for NBA success. October 26, 2014, accessed February 8, 2020 (American English).
  5. ↑ NBA.com ( Memento from May 7, 2012 on the Internet Archive ) Spurs' Popovich named Coach of the Year (May 1, 2012)
  6. ^ Spurs Sports & Entertainment Announces New Leadership Team. Retrieved June 25, 2020 .
  7. ↑ probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com: Gregg Popovich picks up 1,000th career coaching win vs. Pacer's article from February 9, 2015
  8. ↑ Spurs coach Gregg Popovich named USA Basketball Men's National Team coach for 2017-20. October 23, 2015, Retrieved February 8, 2020 (American English).
  9. ↑ Gregg Popovich is never wrong, but he's super wrong about Team USA critics. In: For The Win. September 14, 2019, accessed February 8, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Jack Maloney: NBA Playoffs 2019: Spurs' Gregg Popovich becomes winningest coach in NBA history. Popovich led his Spurs to an upset win over the Nuggets in Game 1 of their first-round series. On: Columbia Broadcasting System website; San Francisco, CA, April 14, 2019. Retrieved April 15, 2019 (in English).
  11. ↑ Quora: What Is the Gregg Popovich System? In: Huffington Post. March 13, 2014. Retrieved March 22, 2017 (American English).
  12. ^ Jack Moore: Gregg Popovich Is the King of Sideline Interviews . In: GQ . December 12, 2016 ( gq.com [accessed March 22, 2017]).
  13. ↑ Gregg Popovich hilarious pre-game interview before Game 7. Retrieved on February 8, 2020 (German).
  14. ↑ Des Bieler, Cindy Boren: 'It's going to be very hard to play basketball today': NBA mourns death of Gregg Popovich's wife. On: Washington Post website; Washington, DC April 19, 2018. Retrieved April 15, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Popovich, Gregg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Popovich, Gregg Charles (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American basketball coach
DATE OF BIRTH January 28, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH East Chicago , Indiana, USA