The Popovich Tree

[Joe Tango from San Diego]

All of these head coaches have coached or played for Gregg Popovich:

Doc Rivers, boston celtics. Played for SA from '94-'96 when Pop was the GM.

Avery Johnson, brooklyn nets. Played for Pop from '96-'01.

Vinny Del Negro, los angeles clippers. Played for Pop from '96-'98.

Monty Williams, new orleans hornets. Played for Pop from '95-'98.

Mike Brown, los angeles lakers. Assistant Coach for Pop from '00-'03.

Jacque Vaughn, orlando magic. Assistant Coach for Pop from '10-12.

And for good measure, Current General Managers in the NBA from the Pop Tree:

Danny Ferry, atlanta hawks.

Rob Hennigan, orlando magic.

Sam Presti, oklahoma city thunder.

Kevin Pritchard, indiana pacers.

[grizzly_bexar]

Pretty impressive.

[Eddy from Austin]

Dell Demps GM New Orleans Hornets played for Spurs when Pop was GM (95-96)

[Jose_TheGenius]

should we count guys under Pop as GM? not to be a debbie downer, but i doubt Pop had any influence on the guys as GM opposed to a head coach

[Eddy from Austin]

And and ... .Neil Olshey GM of the Portland Trail Blazers once stayed in the same Holiday Inn as Pop.

[SleepyAdamII]

Joe Tango are you in SD? I just spent 5 beautiful days there !!!

I was thinking about this, Pop and Phil are excellent managers. They know how to motivate and massage massive egos. Not great Xs and Os ; But I definitely believe there is a Spurs system but it needs the managerial ego of a Popovich to make it work.

[Uwe Blab]

Originally Posted by Eddy from Austin

And and ... .Neil Olshey GM of the Portland Trail Blazers once stayed in the same Holiday Inn as Pop.

Well, I guess I'm off that same tree because I went to one of his old shows on WOAI when they used to have it at U.R. Cooks.

[WILLTHETHRILL]

Originally Posted by Uwe Blab

Well, I guess I'm off that same tree because I went to one of his old shows on WOAI when they used to have it at U.R. Cooks.

I remember going to some of those with my father when I was younger. I recall when Larry Brown came in and the next year with David Robinson (89'-90') they had the previous show at Tony Roma's before U.R. Cooks and even had limited free food with the radio show to draw fans.........nobody cared about the Spurs so the place was empty of Spurs' fans. I swear it took awhile for the city to catch on that the Spurs had something special with the Admiral. Pop has a tree for sure but Larry Brown planted some seeds here with Pop and R.C. Buford. Even though it took TD's arrival to get over the hump.........it was cool to see the beginning of a new era in Spurs basketball. DRob, AJ, Sean Elliott and Pop along with R.C. started a foundation to succeed. It was a process to see everything blow up (Iceman era) then to rebuild, (Larry Brown/DRob era to reload and overcome with the Pop/TD era) and to be there from the start as a fan. It made it so sweet to see them win in 99' and to continue with more titles. So it was cool to be a fan when almost no one else cared after they hit rock bottom. It just makes it so much more awesome even today knowing I was a die hard fan from the Hemisfair Arena days.