Basketball coaching legend Gregg Popovich has moved into a new phase of his career.
After being forced to sit out the 2024-25 season due to health reasons, Gregg Popovich has stepped aside as head coach of the San Antonio Spurs.
Mitchell Johnson has taken over on a permanent basis, amid a mass of tributes for Popovich led by former player Kawhi Leonard.
Popovich had the privilege to coach several of the NBA’s greatest players of his era, the likes of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and David Robinson.
If there is one regret he holds, it’s that he did not get the chance to coach a player who was drafted into the NBA in 1996, the year Popovich began coaching the San Antonio Spurs.
Photo by Maxx Wolfson/Getty ImagesGregg Popovich admired Kobe Bryant
Amid his love for the game of basketball, Gregg Popovich could only admire from afar the incredible impact Kobe Bryant had on the NBA.
The five-times NBA champion powered a Lakers three-peat between 2000 and 2002, that came sandwiched between Popovich’s Spurs winning titles either side in 1999 and 2003.
Speaking in 2017, when Kobe Bryant was honored by the LA Lakers in a double jersey retirement ceremony, Popovich spoke of his regret that he did not have the opportunity to coach the legendary player.
Quoted via Brad Turner of the LA Times, Popovich said at the time: “Kobe is one of those guys that every coach in the world says, ‘That would have been great to have an opportunity to coach that guy.’
“That’s the best thing I can say about him. It says everything.”
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich on Kobe Bryant having jersey No. 8, 24 retired: ““Kobe is one of those guys that every coach in the world says, ‘That would have been great to have an opportunity to coach that guy.’ That’s the best thing I can say about him. It says everything.”
— Brad Turner (@BA_Turner) December 19, 2017
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Popovich did briefly have an opportunity to coach Kobe Bryant a year earlier during NBA All-Star weekend, revealing his lasting impression.
He told ESPN: “What really stood out was the respect that all the players had for him. We’re practicing, we’re fooling around, having a good time, and all of a sudden they started playing a video up there of Kobe highlights. And one by one, the players just stopped.”
2016 saw Kobe Bryant see out his farewell tour, and Popovich admitted he could not help but be caught up in the moment when coaching against him.
“I think we won the game in the last minute or 10 seconds or whatever it was. But he was taking the game over, and I was having fun watching him, kind of like the way you would do with Michael [Jordan] when he played.
“If you weren’t careful, you stopped coaching, and you just started watching because they’re so incredible.”
Gregg Popovich’s tribute to Kobe Bryant
The world was stunned and heartbroken at the sudden death of Kobe Bryant in 2020 in a helicopter crash that also claimed the life of his daughter.
Coach Popovich among the NBA coaches who led the tributes to the legendary Laker, who he had spent the best part of 20 years doing battle with.
He said: “All of us know what a great player he was, but he went beyond great playing. He was a competitor that goes unmatched and it’s what made him, as a player, so attractive to everyone.
“That focus, that competitiveness, that will to win. More importantly, we all feel a deep sense of loss for what he meant to all of us in so many ways. And so many millions of people loved him for so many different reasons.”