CALL HIM “EL JEFE,” PLEASE, BUT IT’S A SAD DAY WHEN POPOVICH MUST LEAVE COACHING
Is he the greatest NBA leader? Phil Jackson won 11 championships with Jordan, Kobe and Shaq but Popovich won five titles with players across Planet Earth and popularized the best basketball globally
“El Jefe” means he’s the chief or the boss, and please never say it’s also a nickname for Fidel Castro. The label belongs to Gregg Popovich, even if his voice is slight and he was helped to the podium Monday morning by Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili. He would have kept coaching Victor Wembanyama into the next decade if he didn’t suffer a stroke six months ago.
He called it “mild,” and just as he won’t cede to Donald Trump — “the biggest whiner that ever walked the face of the earth, like the poorest example of a fifth-grade bully I’ve seen,” he said last year — he wouldn’t initially fade to the risks of disability. He intended to return to the San Antonio Spurs next season.
Finally, he has reached the point where he must depart the bench and try to stay alive. It was an emotional day in sports when a man who won five championships and Olympic gold must be praised for his heyday of finding the future of basketball beyond America. How perfect to see Ginobili, from Argentina, and Duncan, born and raised in the Virgin Islands, part of an elite group including France’s Tony Parker who helped the Spurs to a dynasty. They sit with Popovich during his rehabilitation sessions at the team’s training facilities at the Rock at La Cantera, where he will support new coach Mitch Johnson with the franchise he led to five NBA championships.
“Timmy and Manu have been here for all of my workouts here at the Rock," Popovich said. “They say it's because they love me and they want to be there in case I fall and they want to catch me, that sort of thing. I call it payback. They give the rehab people new ideas for things to do to me. They're not fooling anybody.”
My first communication with Popovich was on a radio show. He didn’t like something I said and let the conversation go silent. “Gregg?’’ I said. He never returned to the air. He instantly followed the Michael Jordan dynasty and constructed his own, through 2014, and while he had Hall of Famers, he never had The Greatest Ever. His teams were built with tough love, wine and chemistry. No one has matched him since, though his scholar, Steve Kerr, is still in the hunt for his fifth title as coach of the Golden State Warriors.
Last week, Kerr wore a “Thanks, Pop!” t-shirt. "Pop's going to kill me for wearing this shirt. He's going to call me a hapless rube for wearing this shirt," Kerr said. “I know this is a pretty emotional day for the Spurs. It is for the entire NBA. The number of people Pop has influenced. The number of coaches in his coaching tree, it's just incredible. But Pop is one of the most important people in my life for many, many reasons, and most of them go way beyond basketball.”
Popovich encouraged Kerr to speak out politically. If it sometimes bothered us when they prioritized personal beliefs in pre-game media speeches, we always knew where they came from. Kerr played for Phil Jackson and Popovich. No wonder he has nine rings and is looking for a 10th.
“I think Pop transformed coaching over the last 20 years," Kerr said. “I think it went from one era to the next. I think of Phil Jackson and Pop, but each of them in their own way transformed the coaching profession into more than just X's and O's authoritarian figure to culture and collaboration and the unique chemistry great teams have. Those two guys, in my mind, helped create the current culture we're in. Pop probably was one of the first coaches in the modern generation to really speak out on politics and social injustices. I immediately think of Phil in that regard — who recognize the importance of sports and yet the relative unimportance and find that balance and that perspective and make an impact societally. And that's what Pop is.”
It’s painful seeing Popovich struggle. His voice always was the most commanding. The crowd managed to laugh when he handed the coaching gig to Johnson. “Since I had the stroke, uh, things are getting better by the day,” he said. “But it’s not good enough for what we plan ahead. And so it’s time to make this change. One of the reasons I’m doing this now is that we have to have someone in charge who is fully capable of giving their very best. Because that’s what this group deserves and demands. And we have that man here in San Antonio. I’ll do everything I can to help him and help them.
“And I’ll have a new job. I want to make sure everyone understands what the new job is.” With that, he unzipped a jacket and exposed a black t-shirt. “El Jefe,” it said, with “Senor Popovich, President of Basketball Ops,” on the back.
“I’m no longer the coach,” he said. “I’m El Jefe,” he said.
“The theme of the book isn’t changing,” said Johnson, a Spurs assistant since 2020, who expects championships. Some thought Popovich would name Becky Hammon as the NBA’s first female coach. Duncan is a staff assistant. How will the coaches groom Wembanyama, who should take over the league for 12-15 years, health permitting.
“I am honored by this opportunity and even more humbled by the people that I'll be able to partner with and serve," Johnson said. “I can't be him or 'El Jefe.’ But to be able to commit and invest in people and relationships — that can be having to yell and hold someone accountable, and that can be to put your arm around someone's shoulder and love them — and he did it better than anybody that's ever walked the sidelines.
Looking at Popovich, Johnson said, “The best thing you ever taught me, and you’ve shown me more than you’ve taught me about it. You understand the moment and how important every single moment is. And no moment is like any other. The discipline you have to be grounded and present, giving yourself to every moment is what I will never forget. And at this moment, I would like to say thank you.”
The best NBA coach ever? Jackson won 11 titles with megastars in Chicago and Los Angeles. Popovich won five with people who weren’t named Jordan, Bryant and O’Neal. “There are smart people everywhere,” he once said. “None of us has it all figured out. Everybody brings something to the table that you might not have thought about.”
Please debate.
Either man wins.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.