A legend has just stopped. Shams Charania has announced that Gregg Popovich will never be the San Antonio Spurs coach after 29 years on the Texan bench. A new shock, although expected which almost immediately gives birth to a question: is it the greatest coach in the history of the NBA and basketball?
In the history of coaching in the NBA, two names stand out very clearly: Gregg Popovich and Phil Jackson. Two legends for a goat title not easy to award. The arguments highlighting the two files are different, but one thing is certain, they have built dynasties, legendary systems that have terrorized the largest league in the world for decades.
Gregg Popovich has just officially ended his career in the NBA. The legendary coach of the San Antonio Spurs spent 29 years on the bench of his heart franchise, the third largest total of all time after Lenny Wilkens and Don Nelson. With 1422 regular victories, he is the most victorious coach of all with nearly 100 more victories than his pursuer.
Gregg Popovich is a long record like the arm of Victor Wembanyama or the Red Panda monocycle: 5x NBA champion, 3x coach of the year or even Olympic champion 2021 with the United States. But what makes it in this conversation for this honorary title is especially what is not seen on its Wikipedia page.
Gregg Popovich, best coach in history?
“Pop” is the man at the base of the longest dynasty of all time. From 1997 to 2019, spurs never missed the playoffs. More than 20 years of domination during which the game practiced has never stopped evolving and being a model of efficiency. Defense of iron around two dominant interiors at the start of their career, until the Beautiful Game of 2014, the Spurs of Gregg Popovich are the best representation of developments in basketball in the past 20 years. An increasingly oiled and exterior attack attack, international players who take the front of the scene, defense specialist roleplayers and 3-point fire. The coach often understood everything, before everyone else.
Of course the biggest of his “reign” period was based on four exceptional players: David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, but even after the retirement of the latter, Gregg Popovich was able to base himself on other strong men like Kawhi Leonard, Demar Derozan, Lamarcus Aldridge or Dejounte Murray to remain competitive. And even when the boat ended up flowing, Coach Pop remained on board and as a symbol, its last full season was the first of Victor Wembanyama, as a relay passage, assurance that the franchise of his life was well kept!
Gregg Popovich is the definition of a job well done. Spurs specialty to find talet’s draft nuggets once plates in the hands. It is difficult to count the number of coaches in the big league who went on his bench before flying on their own two feet: Mike Budenholzer and Ime Udoka in the current NBA (Quin Snyder also went through the Giron Spurs), but also in the past, Brett Brown, James Borrego, Jim Boylen or Jacques Vaughn. The popovich style has infiltrated almost all NBA franchises.
-Finally, the Spurs coach is an unrivaled charisma, scathing answers to journalists at a press conference, a style of coaching well on and off the field, but overall an endearing character who seems almost inseparable from the largest league in the world!
Phil Jackson, best coach in history?
And despite all these pretty words, there is certainly debate. If we only land on the figures, Phil Jackson is the best coach of all time. The Zen Master has many records: 11 champion rings, 13 NBA finals, 229 victories in playoffs, the best percentage of success in regular and post-sex, he never missed the latter, unlike Gregg Popovich with 20 participations in 20 seasons.
Coach of the year in 1996, he had other absurd figures for his record such as the fact that he has never lost a series of playoffs after winning the first match (48/48). And, even if this statistic has already been written in the above paragraph, it must be read it a second time to integrate it well: 11 titles in 20 seasons in the NBA!
Phil Jackson is the inventor of a legendary game plan: the triangle attack. A strategy that worked in different contexts with different teams and players. The Zen Master won 6 titles with the Chicago Bulls by Michael Jordan and 5 with the Los Angeles Lakers of Kobe Bryant. He offered a crazy regularity to his teams, his worst season ending with a 42 victories for 40 defeats.
He too was a charisma monster who managed to hold players in an absolute seriousness (Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant) in walking order (Dennis Rodman, Shaquille O’Neal). He had a sense of extraordinary adaptation and was a leader of born men.
The only elements playing against him in this debate are perhaps the fact that, unlike Gregg Popovich, he left when times were more complicated in his franchises. He has always resulted in superstars and has not built such a special relationship in time as Gregg Popovich with his San Antonio Spurs. The triangle attack gradually disappeared in the NBA, has become obsolete. Phil Jackson did not “so much” adapted; He didn’t need it. And this was felt in the fact that his disciples, the coaches having passed by his side, often missed the captains of their own ships. His imprint on the game may have been a little less durable.
So there is no obvious answer, only arguments that affect you more. Two monsters have scored the benches of the NBA in the past 35 years and are undoubtedly the best in terms of coaching. A huge page has just turned with the retreat of Gregg Popovich, that of one of the greatest successes in NBA history.
