Recently, the Spurs defeated the Jazz, and Popovich won his 1336th career regular season victory, surpassing nelson Sr. and enjoying the first place in history.
In 1988, Popovich was invited to become a Spurs assistant coach, and before that, Popovich was just a third-level league academy coach, unrecognizable, and most people knew nothing about him.
And when I became the spurs manager in 1996, it made many people wonder, who is this person?
Popovich's first season on the job, team leader David Robinson was absent due to injury, and the Spurs only achieved a record of 17 wins and 47 losses that season, but this was not Popovich's nightmare, because the next year's draft, there was a guy named Duncan, and this guy almost left half of the league team to mess up.
After the selection of Duncan, Duncan's position as the core was quickly established, and David Robinson abdicated to give way, knowing that the general at the time was one of the four major centers in the league.
This had to be attributed to their other role, popovich and admirals were both former soldiers, and obedience to management was their criterion.
Popovich's criteria for selection are also very strict, you can have no talent, but you have to obey the management, and the thorn players are swept out one by one.
At the beginning of his tenure, the Spurs were known for their strong defense, and in the defensive league at that time, the Spurs and Pistons finals were also the least watchable games, because they were too tedious, and they were all muscles hitting muscles, resulting in very low ratings.
And in about 10 years, the era of small ball came, the Spurs successfully transformed, from a defensive team to an offensive team, the combination of team passing and cutting, the flow of the ball is very smooth, everyone is very selfless, which also led to spurs players have a good record, but the player data is not outstanding, because everyone is too average.
What a great achievement for a traditional coach to follow the trend of the times and transform a team from a defensive to an offensive team, from a team averaging just over 80 points per game to an offensive team that can average the top three points per game in the league.
And his mentorship with Duncan is also a classic in the NBA, when there was a friendship between Cuban and Nowitzki, and also a mentorship between Duncan and Popovich.
San Antonio is a small ball city, it is difficult to attract superstars, so many years, in addition to their own training of players, the introduction of Ade and DeRozan is relatively big names, when playing the year.
But because of popovich's presence, 6 years of glory, 2027 games, 1335 regular season wins, 5 times leading the team to win the championship, 3 times the best head coach of the year, 4 times the All-Star West End coach, the Olympic champion coach, the best head coach in history!
According to statistics, Popovich alone has won more games than the magic and other 6 teams.
And how many champions did he train for the NBA during his tenure as a coach?
Warriors coach Kerr, Cavaliers head coach Brown, Bucks coach Budenholzer, the king of reversals Rivers, junior General Johnson and so on are all out of the Spurs system.
Popovich of 73 has always been following the trend of progress, and for us in the prime of integrity, we should work hard and spend more time to enrich ourselves and improve ourselves.