Gregg Popovich does not see himself as an entertainer, which is ironic because he is one of the best entertainers in the NBA, which is an entertainment business.
Every time Popovich's mouth opens, it is a suspenseful event. It is impossible to predict what he will say, because Pop is his own man, but it is easy to predict how he will come off, because that rarely changes. He will come off as grouchy and short-tempered but self-aware and amused. He will seem put out by the request that he speak; he does not grant sit-down interview requests when he knows he will be the subject of the story. He has reinvented the sideline interview. It has become Pop's little moment to put on a show by messing with the reporter. And there's always a little glimmer in his eye. He knows who he is, and he knows what he's doing.
And yet something tells me Popovich doesn't see himself as an entertainer. This is a man who got a bachelor's degree in Soviet Studies, for crying out loud. Something tells me Popovich, deep down, sees himself as a really good high school basketball coach who just happens to coach adults.
His start as a head coach came at a level barely higher than that. He was the head coach at Division III Pomona-Pitzer from 1979-87. Pomona-Pitzer was the kind of place where the head coach could go do another job for a year then come back and be the head coach again. That's just what Popovich did in 1985, spending one year as a volunteer assistant under Larry Brown at Kansas.
In a couple of weeks he'll coach in the NBA Finals for the fifth time. He's 4-for-4 so far.
You never get any argument when you say Popovich is the best coach in the NBA. Phil Jackson and Pat Riley are retired from coaching, which means Popovich is the only active coach with more than one championship. And his team has more or less been a contender every year since 1999. He won the Western Conference this year with his three best players averaging 34 years old.
But Pop is not a coaching star on the level of Jackson, Riley, Brown or even guys like Chuck Daly or Doc Rivers. His excellence is acknowledged, but he isn't seen as a celebrity they way everybody else who has won this many titles is.
Part of the reason for this is location. San Antonio is a small city. The metropolitan area of 2.3 million in population puts San Antonio 25th, down there with cities like Charlotte (23rd), Portland (24th), Orlando (26th) and Sacramento (27th). And it's out in central Texas, which isn't exactly remote, but isn't quite close to anything, either. The city was part of Mexico when it was founded. So the Spurs are just kind of out there, and they're the only game in town so ticket sales are never an issue and they don't give the media much but they don't ask for much, either. There is a real sense of independence and self-reliance to that franchise. A lot of that is built-in, but a lot of it is Pop.
Another reason for Popovich's relatively low profile is that nothing ever changes with him. He is not dynamic. He doesn't change jobs, he doesn't change power forwards and he doesn't change his mind. His hair hasn't even changed color in 20 years. He has looked exactly 60 years old since 1997 (he's 64).
And the cumulative effect of all this is that Popovich is seen more as a machine than a man. It is widely treated as academic that the Spurs are going to win 50 games every year, even if there's a strike (2012).
But he is not a machine, and this is not easy. Like every great coach, he has to manage egos and tinker and think and push and then pull back and sand off complacency like surface rust on a chrome bumper and always find a way to get a little bit better here or there and hope the little things add up to big things.
Which they always do.
Popovich isn't just the best coach in the NBA, he's one of the best coaches of all time. He belongs up there with Auerbach, Jackson and Riley. He is not likely to catch Auerbach and Jackson in total rings, but — no disrespect to Tim Duncan, who could be the best power forward ever — he never had Michael Jordan on his team, and he spent a good chunk of his career dealing with Shaquille O'Neal in his conference.
Jackson was the "Zen Master," and it was a persona he created. He didn't mind telling you about his unconventional methods. Riley coached in Los Angeles … in the '80s … for a team known as "Showtime." And he slicked back that hair, and put on those nice suits and, man, there has never been anything in sports more glamorous than that whole scene. Auerbach smoked cigars on the sideline and won a million championships.
But that's not Pop. Pop isn't glamorous. Even the nickname, "Pop," is just basic. It's what you call your dad.
Last spring, I was in the Lakers locker room talking to Metta World Peace. You'll recall this was a year after Memphis had stunned the Spurs in the first round of the playoffs and although the Spurs had ripped off another great season the climate was still very much in that "are the Spurs finally breaking down?" space. I asked World Peace what he thought.
"They got Pop," he said.
A year later, the Spurs are back in the finals.
They got Pop.
