Spurs Hall of Fame coach Gregg Popovich is not expected to return to the bench this season, and his long-term status remains unclear, according to a new report from Shams Charania of ESPN.
Popovich has been out since Nov. 2 when he suffered a mild stroke before a game. His recovery is reportedly going well on a personal level but that is very different from returning to coaching at the NBA level, and he is apparently not ready. There are now questions about whether he will return to the bench at all.
Here is what Popovich said in the one statement he has released since his stroke.
No one is more excited to see me return to the bench than the talented individuals who have been leading my rehabilitation process. They’ve quickly learned that I’m less than coachable.
The hope had always been that Popovich could step away on his own terms, but that future is cloudy now.
Assistant coach Mitch Johnson was bumped up to head coach on an interim basis and the team is 22-27 under his tutelage but is fading from the play-in race (they are 12th in the West, three games out of the last play-in spot). That ground will be almost impossible to make up because the Spurs are without Victor Wembanyama for the remainder of the season due to deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder.
Popovich, 76, is the NBA’s all-time winningest coach, with 1,390 regular-season victories and 170 in the playoffs. He is a five-time NBA champion and coached Team USA to an Olympic gold medal in Tokyo.
