GREGG Popovich: The NBA -truth -teller who held Trump and the USA to accountable | San Antonio Spurs

RAise a glass of Gregg Popovich, the rugged teddy bear, who lifted the San Antonio Spurs into the elite of the NBA. After three decades on the sidelines of the Spurs, he resigned from the coaching to become the president of the team for basketball operations. For the 76-year-old it is a back-to-of-the-fouture step: he was the General Manager of the Spurs for eight years before he became the team's coach. (“I'm no longer the coach, I'm El Jefe,” said Popovich jokingly this week before introducing a T-shirt with this Spanish title.) Overall, Pop won five NBA championships from 1999 to 2014, a run that takes him to the greatest coaches in league history. But when it came to being the unshakable statesman of the NBA, he was alone in a league.

Popovich was not just the backbone of the NBA. Perhaps he was the most fearless fortune teller throughout the sport. Certainly nobody was braver when it came to taking over Donald Trump – the Popovich as a “soulless coward”, described as a “pathological liar” and “disturbed idiot”. Popovich said Beat Reporter that after Trump's presidential election, he was “sick in my stomach”, a turning point that he had compared with the Rome case. He struck Steve Bannon's appointment as the chief strategist of the White House as a strategist of the White House. During the media day of Spurs 2017, Popovich started a 21-minute conviction from Trump and the Maga movement after the President attacked the NFL players and the Nascar Bubba Wallace because of their national anthem protests. “Our country is a embarrassment for the world,” said Popovich. “This is a person who kept weapons during the games. [he thought] that they did it to do it [dis]Honor the flag. This is delusional. But it is what we have to live with. “

Whenever the missions were most culturally and politically highest, Popovich was the coach that could be counted the most not adhere to the sport. During the NBA celebration of Black History Month in 2018, Popovich kept the topic of systemic racism and recognized his own white privilege. “If you were born white, you automatically have a monstrous advantage – in this society pedagogically, economically, culturally,” he said. “It's a difficult one because people don't really want to face it.”

With all of this, he kept an ironic sense of humor. When reporter questioned the Spurs loss strip in 2019, Popovich used it as an opportunity to indirectly criticize Trump. “Anyone who started the rumor that we lose these games did not happen,” he joked. “It's a witch hunt. I see treacherous behavior. I see spies. They are all sick.”

Popovich follows in a rich NBA coaching tradition that started when Boston's Red Auerbach used his considerable strength to put on obstacles to black players. And when Popovich spoke out against Trump, he lacked no support from his colleagues. Stan van Gundy, the former Detroit Piston coach, who became a broadcaster, called Trump's “misleading” anthem of Protest attacks in a time magazine. Steve Kerr von Golden State, an important player in two of Pop championship teams, reflects Popovich's outrage over all things from Trump and Trump Adjazent. Mike Budenholzer supported a decision conducted by the player to boycott a Playoff game 2020 in protest against the police, while the coach of Milwaukee Bucks solved a wave of Walkoffs over US sports.

But where van Gundy and Budenholzer are respected for their opinion in this stature for their opinion outside of the game, and Kerr-Dessen Father as President of the American University of Beirut was murdered-bound to blood in all their forms, and meets differently when Popovich enters the chat because he comes from the background with many conservatives in America. Popovich played at the Air Force Academy College basketball in the 1960s and was his main year of the team and was scorer. After graduating in Soviet studies and his regulations in five years, he looked at a career in the CIA before starting his coaching trip as Air Force Assistant in the early 1970s.

When Peter Holt bought the Spurs in 1993, one of his first steps was to bring Popovich back as general manager. (Pop began in the late 80s with the Spurs when the right hand became the coach of the legend Larry Brown.) Popovich helped to realize the global ambitions of the NBA and organized his squad around the Frenchman Tony Parker, Argentina's Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan – a competitive junction from the American boy island have withdrawn.

Popovich's coaching style was not always valued in its heyday before the current 3-and-D era went under control. Complex fans demonstrated the dogmatic selfless brilliance of the Spurs, the apogee of Browns Play-the-Way-Ethos, when San Antonio, the victories-stormed with the hero of the Naval Academy, David Robinson, then Duncan, then several years of all-star swingman Kawhi Leonard. And while Popovich was difficult for his players – not least Duncan (who often has an example of the well -being of well -being) and may have cost more rings by losing his patience with Leonard (whose frequent injuries and sporadic availability proved to be frustrating), the coach of the coach more often won.

Stories about Pop's personal touch. He could scold a reporter, the Bill Belichick style, but he could also help the same reporter to land another job if his newspaper suddenly folds together or supports someone else with his cancer. (Even a question as simple as How are you doing? Could cause a sincere reaction of pop.) It was quick to be in his own cock and break the tension at the Court. LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Steph Curry would not have started to break down the wine obsession of the league without Popovich – the King -oenophils of the NBA – to break its rare bottles for dinner with a cheap team USA. (“He always came around the table and told everyone what the wine was that he served that evening,” said Kerr in an interview from 2000 and remembered the Spurs team dinner.

But during the team's exhibition trip to Paris at the beginning of this year, Wembanyama was the Boozy Team evening dinner host, while Popovich stayed in the USA again to recover from a stroke that would finally lead to it. After Popovich had suffered another health offer last month, he gave up his coaching tasks completely. As much as it is intelligent not See how he contains a sixth title with Wembanyama after fighting the Spurs in fallow times. It only means that Popovich can finally work on his wildest statement: the installation of Becky Hammon as the first head coach of the NBA.

Hammon, who was seven seasons in Pops Stab, has dodged the following rumors for years. “My heart is a little difficult for him because I know how much he loves it, but I am sure that he will crush this role,” says Hammon, a championship coach with the Las Vegas Aces of the WNBA. “He is a big reason why I have this job.” (Do not keep Hammon's breath as the next coach of the Spurs: she continued to say that she was “super happy” in the WNBA, but would not rule out a return to the NBA in line.)

The story will be remembered by Popovich as one of the winners of the sport of all time, remarkable coaches, who defeated super squads built by Phil Jackson and Pat Riley. In the meantime, Hammon's head coaching (two WNBA titles), Kerr (four NBA titles) and Budenholtzer (one with Milwaukee in 2021) and the former assistant Ime Udoka (Houston) and Will Hardy (Utah) speaks to Pop's broader effect into the game as a mentor. But Popovich's ultimate heir as a league state man stands for all times and leaves an emptiness who even Kerr, his main representative, has difficulty filling. But who knows if Kerr still has to? While Popovich may step back from the sidelines, you expect his voice to still vibrate just because there is no chance that he just stays during sports. Not with the missions that are so high.