San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
While others have retired, Popovich is doing two jobs.
Even after 1,415 wins and 5 titles, coach happy to pull double duty
LAS VEGAS — Gregg Popovich made it through one full day.
By the middle of the second, he’d just about reached his limit for geniality. And once the “What do you expect from so-and-so?” questions from assembled reporters started giving way to those asking “How important is such-andsuch?” the 70-year-old basketball coach turned his head away from the cameras and briefly contemplated his life choices.
“God,” Popovich muttered. “I’ll be glad when I don’t have to do this anymore.”
As usual, there was a dry facetiousness behind Popovich’s lament, as he knew better than to expect any sympathy.
After all, nobody is forcing him to do this job.
Not either one of them. A couple of months ago, Popovich joked about leaving the Spurs to go drink wine in “Portofino and Positano,” and few would blame him if he did. He already has earned more money than he’ll ever spend, and won more NBA games than any coach ever has, and celebrated enough champi
onships for a lifetime.
Does he really need to spend one second worrying about how to deal with Serbia’s zone, or about which backcourt combination will work best against the Clippers?
The amazing thing is he’s voluntarily doing both, and has been for a while now. At a time when almost all of his contemporaries are retired, Popovich is busier than ever, balancing his role as head coach of USA Basketball with his Spurs duties, even though both are full-time gigs.
Night after night throughout the last NBA season, he let himself think about potential World Cup lineups. And this week at USA training camp at UNLV, he watched a young guard on the practice team — the best player on the floor during one scrimmage, several in attendance said — and couldn’t wait to find more ways to unleash Derrick White alongside Dejounte Murray in silver and black. “It’s been like coaching two teams at the same time,” Popovich said.
He wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t have high expectations for both of them. Thanks to all of the stars who chose rest over the chance to play at next month’s World Cup in China, Popovich has less talent on his version of Team USA than Mike Krzyzewski ever did, but the Americans remain the favorites to win a third consecutive gold medal.
And although it’s yet to be determined if White will be part of the team vying for that gold — he has been promoted to the 17-man senior roster, but needs to survive another round of cuts to make the 12-man World Cup squad — the young guard’s emergence bodes well for Popovich’s other team, too.
The Spurs aren’t going to enter Popovich’s 24th season as favorites for anything and will be far from assured of reaching the playoffs for a record 23rd consecutive year. Given the state of the Western Conference, the Spurs might improve as a team and still finish with a worse record than they had last season. But Popovich genuinely likes the group he has assembled in San Antonio, and after outsiders speculated DeMar DeRozan might be used as trade bait this offseason, all indications are that the Spurs value his presence and want to keep him around. They have not yet offered him a maximum contract extension, but they have not ruled out the possibility of doing so before the season begins, either.
All that will come later, though. For now, Popovich remains engaged in USA Basketball’s World Cup preparations, which he’s called “the most satisfying form of putting a bunch guys together, and them having empathy and love for each other.” And lest anyone get the impression his heart isn’t completely into the endeavor, players such as P.J. Tucker and Joe Harris can assure you he hasn’t held back from the beginning of camp.
“He told us right from the get-go, don’t take it personal,” Harris said of Popovich’s intensity. “We’re here to win.”
And if they do win? Well, that’s exactly what most people expect from them anyway, right? For Popovich, dispatching the likes of Greece and Spain wouldn’t add a whole lot to his legacy, but losing to them surely would open himself to some second-guessing.
The way Popovich sees it, that’s fine.
“I knew what I was getting into,” Popovich said. “It’s your country. You say yes. You man up and try to surround yourself with as much brainpower as you can.”
By now, he shouldn’t have anything to prove, but that’s not why he’s traveling from Las Vegas to Los Angeles to Australia to China with Team USA, and it’s not why he’ll be back at another Spurs training camp. He cannot yet imagine a life in which he doesn’t have a team to build.
Yeah, some of the questions this fall will be dumb, and Popovich will grouchily insist he can’t wait for the day when he doesn’t have to answer them anymore.
Knowing all the while how much he’ll miss them someday.