Pop

May 5, 2025

Dear Leland and Everett,

I’m not ready for Pop to step down as coach of the Spurs.  

Don’t get me wrong:  I get that it’s the right thing to do.  Most importantly, I trust it’s the right thing for Pop.  Reluctantly, I even accept it’s probably the right thing for the Spurs.  I’m not trying to change what’s real, nor am I trying to change anyone’s mind.  It’s just that I’m not ready.  

Pop coached my favorite team my whole adult life (at least until this point).  He took over as coach when I was a freshman in college, living in San Antonio.  I was in the stadium for the Memorial Day Miracle, when Sean Elliot hit that 3-pointer while toeing the out of bounds line in game 1 of the 1999 Western Conference Finals against the formidable Trailblazers.  I lived in San Antonio that summer before my senior year, getting some work experience via an unpaid internship and waiting tables at night to make money.  That championship run snuck up on us Spurs fans.  It was a strike shortened season, and just a few years prior the Spurs suffered an agonizing loss to the Rockets despite having the best record in the NBA.  Spurs fans knew nothing was certain.  And yet.  You could feel the excitement building in the city that summer.  The atmosphere in San Antonio during the summer time, when the Spurs are in the playoffs, is always electric…but that summer was different.  On the one hand, a city that had never won a championship couldn’t quite believe they ever would.  On the other hand, it felt like a team of destiny.  I watched the Raptors playoff run in 2019 and the Bucks run in 2021; both times I thought “I recognize that energy: those fans know something special is happening”.  That’s how San Antonio felt in the summer of 1999.  

The thing I’ll never forget about the Memorial Day Miracle:  the sound.  I was sitting about 10 rows from the top of the Alamodome, that football stadium where the Spurs played back then.  I was in the upper deck, technically behind the gigantic tarp the team used to partition the stadium for basketball.  My tickets cost $8, because that’s what I could afford back then (and because the seats were, frankly, not very good; I didn’t care: I just wanted to be in the building).  When that shot went in, the crowd erupted.  The loudspeakers started to play a song; it was at least a minute before I could discern they were playing YMCA, that’s how loud the stadium was.  The next day, a classmate told me that ESPN’s Sportscenter showed a clip from the vantage point of the on-floor cameraman, and that the camera literally started shaking from all the crowd delirium.

I was working the night the Spurs won the first championship later that summer.  After my shift I drove downtown to the River Walk; I just wanted to be around celebrating fans, and assumed I would find them downtown.  I did, though I never made it to the River Walk:  cars jammed downtown, fans honking and yelling in celebration.  I didn’t need to get out of my car to find the celebration; I just sat in my car, in dead still traffic, euphoric with all the other Spurs fans.  

In 2000 Timmy got hurt, wrecking the title defense.  In 2001 I thought we’d take the crown back from the Lakers; boy was I wrong.  In 2002 the Spurs overhauled the roster, signing Bruce Bowen and Stephen Jackson and drafting Tony Parker; alas they still couldn’t overcome the Lakers.  As so often happens in basketball, the next year the newly constructed team gelled: the 2003 team added Manu Ginobili, won 60 games for the first time in the Tim Duncan era, vanquished the mighty Lakers, and won their second title in David Robinson’s last season.  The 2004 team came close, losing to the Lakers in part thanks to a Derek Fisher turnaround jump shot off an out-of-bounds play that started with 0.4 seconds on the shot clock…clearly aided by some lousy timekeeping (not that I’m bitter).  The 2005 team responded by taking the title from the defending champion Pistons in a seven game slugfest, aided by Robert Horry heroics in game 5 and Manu Ginobili heroics in game 7.  In 2006 the Spurs led the Dallas Mavericks by 3 with ~20 seconds left in game 7 when Manu inexplicably fouled Dirk Nowitzky on a layup.  Manu only had one speed, and that was reckless abandon.  We had to take the good with the bad, even if the bad meant a mistake that ultimately cost the Spurs their season.  The Mavericks went on to the Finals, only to lose to an honestly weaker Heat team.  You will never convince me the Spurs wouldn’t have won another championship that season if not for that foul.  Thankfully, they redeemed themselves again in 2007, thanks in part to the Robert Horry shove of Steve Nash late in game 4 of the Western Conference semis.  I’m still astonished how the Spurs either won or came painfully close to winning the title five years in a row. What an incredible run, the type of run all fans dream of experiencing once in their lives.  

With Timmy aging, the Spurs slowly lost their magic.  They made it to the Western Conference Finals again in 2008, only to get beat 4-1 by the Lakers.  In 2009 the Spurs lost in the first round, and in 2010 they were swept in the second round.  By 2011 the team remade itself around Manu, finishing the regular season with the West’s top seed; unfortunately Manu hurt himself shortly before the playoffs, and the Spurs lost, somewhat embarrassingly, in the first round to the 8-seed Grizzlies.  

At this point I assumed the Spurs run was over.  I had loved it, but Father Time comes for all of us.  Little did I know that the team would remake itself again, this time around Tony Parker.  In 2012 the Spurs, again the number 1 seed, won their first 10 playoff games, prompting some sportswriters to start pondering where the team belonged amongst the all-time greats.  Unfortunately for San Antonio, the young but prodigiously talented Thunder grew up overnight, winning the next four games and ending the Spurs season.  Pop’s Knute Rockne-esque “I want some nasty” speech inspired a game 1 comeback win, but wasn’t enough to deliver the Spurs back to the promised land.  

Up 3-2 in the NBA Finals, the 2013 Spurs led the Miami Heat by 5 with 28 seconds to play.  A Lebron James 3 and a Kawhi Leonard missed free throw set the stage for my most painful experiences as a Spurs fan. Pop left Timmy, one of the best defenders and rebounders in the history of the league, on the bench for the deciding defensive possession. LeBron missed his 3, but Chris Bosh secured an offensive rebound Timmy might have grabbed, then passed out to Ray Allen, who hit one of the most remarkable shots one will ever see.  The Spurs went on to lose in OT, and then again in game 7. I’ll forever be proud of how hard the Spurs fought in game 7: most teams can’t recover from the type of soul-crushing loss they suffered in game 6, but those Spurs teams were special.  

Unbelievably (at least to me), the Spurs rallied in 2014, putting together one of the most beautiful seasons of basketball ever.  Pop overhauled the Spurs offense (led by Tony Parker but frankly lacking a true superstar) to be more egalitarian, relying on passing and cutting and dizzying pace.  More than a decade later, the 2014 Spurs remain a shorthand for basketball enthusiasts and talking heads: they arguably represent the peak of aesthetic basketball.  I watched the clinching game from Singapore, taking the day off from work to watch my beloved Spurs win their fifth championship.  When an aging Manu dunked in traffic on a fast break, San Antonio went delirious.  The prior season, Manu’s Finals performance was bad enough that we thought his career as an impact player was effectively over, so that dunk was cathartic. A national sportswriter I follow, who was in attendance, quipped that he thought the were going to have to call an unofficial timeout, like they do at Rucker Park for street ball games, so that the crowd could just fully celebrate.  

By 2015 Timmy was on his last legs, and the Spurs lost a first round slugfest with the LA Clippers.  That offseason the Spurs signed all-star LaMarcus Aldridge.  In 2016 Kawhi Leonard emerged as one of the league’s superstars, and the Spurs won a franchise record 67 games.  Unfortunately, they ran into the OKC Thunder at the peak of their athleticism, right before the Thunder lost to the record-setting 73-win Warriors, right before the Warriors lost to Lebron’s Cavs in an epic seven game series.  That Spurs team gets lost in the top-heavy 2016 season, but they were great.  In 2017 the Spurs led the Warriors by 21 points in the third quarter of game 1 of the Western Conference Finals when Zaza Pachulia undercut Kawhi Leonard, ending Kawhi’s season and the Spurs title hopes.  

And then everything unraveled.  Kawhi never fully recovered from his injuries.  The details remain murky, but Kawhi sat most of the 2018 season before demanding a trade.  The Spurs salvaged what they could, but NBA teams don’t recover from trading superstars in their primes.  The Spurs made the playoffs in 2019, only to lose in the first round.  In 2020, the Spurs missed the playoffs for the first time in 23 years.  

For the next three years, the Spurs slowly dismantled what remained of their roster, moving into a full rebuild.  During that time, they leveraged one of Pop’s core strengths, player development, by drafting and developing players who they then traded to contenders for additional draft picks.  Watch an NBA playoff game the last few offseasons, and you were likely to watch a former Spur contribute to a team’s success.  

The losing and accumulated draft picks are starting to pay off.  Last year the Spurs won the draft lottery, and with it the chance to draft a player who legitimately looks like he could surpass Michael Jordan to become the best who ever lived.  The only thing standing between Victor Wembanyama and a truly legandary NBA career appears to be health; if he can stay healthy, it’s hard to imagine him not winning multiple titles and MVP awards.  He’s genuinely that good.  

Through it all, Pop has been our anchor.  Early in his career, the Spurs invariably led the league (or came very close) in defense.  The offense was pretty simple: dump it down to Timmy on the left block and let him go to work. As Timmy aged and the league evolved, Pop evolved too.  By the 2010s the Spurs were often led by an offense increasingly noted for its passing and cutting and pace.  Pop ruthlessly copied great ideas from other teams, notably the Mike D’Antoni Suns teams.  But Pop’s teams also introduced, or at least perfected, offensive wrinkles of his own.  The Spurs used Hammer Screens to spring open three point shooters, particularly in needed late-game situations.  When zone defenses became legal, the Spurs so regularly fooled the Heat by sending a cutter to the strong side of the zone that the Heat came to call it “the Danny Green cut”, after the Spurs’ marksman.  

Pop set a culture of excellence, one where he and his players deflected all praise to others.  He was stubborn and irascible, but genuinely loved his players and appreciated opposing players and coaches throughout the league.  One of Pop’s rules:  if a former player happened to be dining at the restaurant wherever he was eating, Pop picked up the check.  This rule prompted some former players to scout where Pop would be dining during road trips, so that they might get a free meal from their former coach.  

Pop’s knowledge of food and wine was such that…well, if you are at all curious, I encourage you to read this. The man knew how to recognize and cultivate excellence beyond just the basketball court.

Reliving these memories today drives home the meaning sports can play in our lives. With the announcement of Pop’s retirement, I am flooded with memories, not just of basketball, but where I was during those moments. I most vividly remember the summer of 1999: it was the Spurs’ first championship, I was living in San Antonio at the impressionable age of 21. I remember watching the Spurs get blown out of game 1 of the 2001 WCF on vacation, feeling humiliated in front of my friends after boasting a little too much about how the Spurs were going to win. I remember sitting at my desk in 2003 in Phoenix, or while on a business trip to Indianapolis, devouring all the articles I could find about the previous night’s game, soaking in the wins. I have hardly any recollection at all of traveling to Indianapolis, but I can still see the desk and the office surroundings as I read those articles. I remember sitting at home in Phoenix watching game 7 of the 2005 Finals, making sure no one else was around so that I could cheer as loudly as I wanted (because I knew I wouldn’t be able to help myself). I remember being at a networking function during game 6 of the 2013 Finals, getting text messages from my high school friends about how the Spurs were about to win. I remember checking my phone right about the moment Kawhi missed his free throw; I’ll never forget the feeling of doubt I experienced in that moment, and the feeling of dread that grew as the game unravelled. I’ll never forget the feeling of gratitude and appreciation I felt watching the team win in 2014, and even anticipating how the game would flow (with the Spurs going on a torrential run in the second half). More recently, I doubt I’ll ever forget watching game 81 of last year’s regular season with the two of you in our hotel during spring break in Sacramento, when Wemby scored 17 points in 3 minutes en route to a stunning upset of the defending champion Nuggets. With that win, the 22-win Spurs cost the Nuggets the #1 seed in that year’s playoffs; I’ll always wonder if the Nuggets might have repeated as champions had they won that game, but the broader point is the feeling of hope and anticipation I felt regarding Wemby’s upcoming career arc.

Partly this experience drives home the meaning sports can play in our lives. Those sporting memories create visceral associations, often in astonishing detail. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another association that can put me in a time and place so vividly. I can see where I was, who I was with, and almost instantly remember what was happening in my life. Without those anchors, I very much doubt I would be able to recreate those eras in my life nearly so accurately. Remembering my life as a Spurs fan during the Greg Popovich tenure is, in many ways, remembering my life as an adult thus far. Having those memories come flooding back all in one day was overwhelming and more than a little emotional. It’s not just closing the book on Pop’s career; for me it’s closing a chapter of my life, one that I’ve loved and cherished and long since known couldn’t last forever. It’s not so much that I fear losing those memories; I assume I will still be able to access them, at least under the right circumstances. It’s more just the intensely personal reflection of my life, and the intimate look I get through the years and eras of my life. I’m coming to understand that getting to the root of our identity is always a vulnerable and emotional experience. Recalling my memories as a Spurs fan provides some interesting windows through which I can see myself, who I’ve been, and who I’ve become. It’s deeply personal, and therefore raw and emotional.

So, this note is my way of processing a change I’m not ready to make.  I know it’s time.  Pop is 76 years old, the end of the line was coming soon no matter what.  The odds he would be able to coach the Spurs through Wemby’s peak years were already pretty remote.  After his stroke last year, those odds became virtually nil.  But I can know it’s time and still not be ready.  And I’m not ready.  

I will be.  First I just need to take some time to reminisce, and appreciate how lucky we Spurs fans have been.  

Thank you for everything Pop.  

I love you kiddos.

Love,

Dad

P.S. In case this makes no sense to you reading this: Greg Popovich announced today (Friday 5/2/25) that he is stepping down as head coach of the San Antonio Spurs. He’ll continue to function as team president, but for the first time in 29 years, he won’t be the coach.