Mitch Johnson has officially been named the next head coach of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team, Spurs Sports and Entertainment announced in a press release Friday. He is the 19th head coach in San Antonio Spurs history.
The announcement came shortly after confirming that longtime head coach Gregg Popovich will transition into a new role as the franchise’s President of Basketball Operations. The Spurs plan to hold an introductory press conference with Johnson on Monday.
The son of former NBA Seattle SuperSonics’ John “JJ” Johnson, Mitch grew up playing basketball and was immersed in the sport. A Seattle native, Johnson, 38, graduated from O’Dea High School, where he played under coach Phil Lumpkin and acted as the team captain during his varsity tenure.
He went on to play Division I collegiate basketball at Stanford, where he averaged 5.2 points, 3.0 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game while shooting 38.3% from the field, according to ESPN statistics. Here, he played among other growing legends such as the Lopez twins and Landry Fields. He graduated from Stanford in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, going undrafted for the NBA that same year.
Johnson then had a brief stint in the G League with the Tulsa 66ers before going on to play professionally in Europe across leagues in Germany and Belgium for three years.
He formally began his coaching career in 2015 as an assistant at the University of Portland, although he had briefly also coached young athletes in the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League before that. Johnson only spent one year with the Portland Pilots before he joined the Austin Spurs, the G League affiliate of the San Antonio Spurs, in 2016, helping lead the team to a G-League championship in 2018.
Popovich hired Johnson as an assistant coach with the Spurs in 2019, and in 2020, he was promoted to a full-time assistant role, taking over Tim Duncan’s former position on the staff. Johnson served as interim head coach during a 140–103 loss to the Suns on May 15, 2021, while Pop attended Duncan’s Hall of Fame induction, and again in a 110–99 win over the Pacers on March 2, 2023, due to an illness overtaking Pop.
Johnson again stepped into the role as interim head coach in November, after Popovich suffered a mild stroke, leading to an extended leave of absence. Pop initially expressed optimism he would return after his diagnosis; however, in April, he experienced a second “medical episode,” which reportedly led to his decision to retire from coaching.
It was announced via social media on Friday that Johnson would officially remove the interim from his title moving forward.
Johnson had reportedly “amassed strong backing” from the organization since taking over as interim head coach, with many of the team’s young players giving him strong reviews, including 2023-24 Rookie of the Year Victor Wembanyama, who last month told ESPN that he trusts “Mitch to grow into [the] role.”
“I think we are in good hands supporting each other all throughout the organization,” he is reported as saying. “I’m ready for anything, and I know the organization will [make] the good decisions.”
Johnson lives in San Antonio with his wife, Jessica, and their four children: Tasia, Tatum, Johnnie and Jameson.