When it comes to the great coaches of the NBA, the first thing that comes to mind is probably Gregg Popovich. Born in East Chicago, Indiana, Popovich graduated from the U.S. Air Force Officer School and is currently the head coach of the NBA's San Antonio Spurs.
Popovich was the captain of the U.S. troop basketball team and won the National Business Sports League championship in 1972, then served as a college coach assistant and was introduced by the head coach to the ABA Denver Nuggets for a trial, but failed to gain favor, when the Denver Nuggets' head coach was Larry Brown.
Popovich became head coach of Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens in 1979, having already lost more than 80 consecutive games before taking over, but Popovich took them to the divisional finals in just three years and won the league title for the first time in 1986. This also made Popovich a little famous in the North American basketball circle at that time. After that, he began to take a vacation to enrich himself. He went to North Carolina to become an intern teaching assistant, where he studied north Carolina game videos, studied books, caused the theoretical level to skyrocket, and three months later, he left North Carolina to work as a team assistant at the University of Kansas, when the team coach was Larry Brown, and then Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens played a game with the University of Kansas, although Popovich's team lost badly, popovich's coaching ability impressed Larry Brown.
In 1988, Larry Brown became NBA San Antonio Spurs coach and invited Popovich as his assistant coach. In this way, Popovich's NBA career began. After more than three seasons with the Spurs, popovich briefly left the Spurs for Nelson Sr. Warriors after being fired on the Brown coaching team. Two seasons under Nelson Sr. gave Popovich a new understanding of the game of basketball, during which his ability to work was recognized by the whole league.
In 1994, Popovich returned to the Spurs as general manager and brought in the current Spurs general manager RC Buford and current Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer. In 1996, he fired the then head coach, personally served as the team's head coach without a single NBA coaching experience, and in his first season as head coach, he chose to swing and finally signed the team's Cornerstone Duncan, one of the best big forwards in NBA history. After the 97-98 season, the 98-98 season, the Spurs ended the regular season with a 37-13 loss in the case of a bad start, and went all the way through the playoffs to win the championship, which was also Popovich's first NBA championship trophy.
In the following seasons, the Spurs had a good regular season record, but it was difficult to improve in the playoffs and did not qualify for the championship. Until the 02-03 season, the Spurs eliminated the opponent with 4 4-2 to win the second championship of the Popovich period, which began the journey of winning the championship in an odd number of years, 03-04 was reversed by the Lakers, the 04-05 season played a defensive battle, and finally won the championship 4-3, and the 05-06 season played the best record in the history of the regular season, but unfortunately lost seven to the Nowitzki Mavericks, the 06-07 season made a comeback, and finally won the championship again.
In the following seasons, the Spurs entered the playoffs every year, but they were always the ones who accompanied the runners in the championship competition.
Time came to the 12-13 season, the Spurs led the Heat 3-2 in the Finals, led by 5 points when there were 28.2 seconds left in the game but finally lost the game, and lost the championship 88-95 in the seventh battle, which is also a regret in Popovich's career. In the 13-14 season, before the Spurs started, Popovich let the players watch the last two defeats of last season's finals, learned from them, and finally the Spurs were unstoppable to win the championship this season. It is also Popovich's last championship to date.
Popovich's legendary career has created many honors and impossibilities, three times Coach of the Year; a thousand wins over the coach and won on the same team; leading the Spurs to the playoffs for 22 consecutive seasons; winning five championships; winning 16 consecutive wins of at least 10 or more consecutive first places; 50 wins in 16 consecutive seasons, even in a shrinking season; and many more.
Popovich has coached for more than 20 seasons, and from the perspective of results, it has brought great success to the Spurs, and from the perspective of knowledge and employment, it has discovered a number of players who are not optimistic about Manu, Parker, Bonner, Danny Green, Leonard and so on. Not just in terms of players, many coaches and managers in the NBA now are also his disciples, and they bring to the NBA the culture that belongs to Popovich and have achieved good results. From Popovich, we can apply many things to the operation and life of the company, his wisdom, unique thinking logic, employment methods, can be a good reference for the benign development of a company, but also show that learning is important, not in north Carolina for three months, without that period of theoretical supplementation, perhaps there is no Popovich in the future brilliant pen.
Popovich is great, he has a clever mind, and he has a curiosity about knowledge. His clever mind combined with his keen eye is really unusual.