Gregg Popovich's legacy: Behind the beauty of the Spurs coach's greatness

Every historical coach the NBA has produced can be filed under the manilla folder of “unlikely,” but perhaps none fits the profile more perfectly than Gregg Popovich.

Popovich doesn’t have the signature style, look, or even singular period of dominance like coaches who neatly fit into this category. His career has criss-crossed with others who were arguably more decorated, more famous.

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The modern coach who comes to mind in this fictional argument, Phil Jackson, created a mystique around himself, bolstered by his ability to get the most out of Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. Jackson’s triangle offense spawned imitators and his smug off-the-floor demeanor amused some, annoyed others. He was a hippie who didn’t fit what great distinguished coaches looked like headed into the 1990s.

But winning 11 championships as a coach makes one unassailable, same with the cigar-smoking Red Auerbach, who didn’t mind engaging in Boston Garden subterfuge to torture opponents in the 1960s when the Celtics did the most winning we’ve ever seen in a decade.

One would have to look deeper with Popovich, but the answer seems clear in its ambiguity. There is no signature style, no “Showtime” to his name. The beauty in Popovich entering this pantheon is the adaptability of his approach.

Sitting on a staff with the rebellious Don Nelson as an assistant in Golden State likely meant Popovich had to stay on his toes in the early 1990s, but he didn’t bring those wild ways with him when taking over for Bob Hill in 1996.

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In those five championships the Spurs won from 1999 to 2014, there’s one common denominator on the floor and one off it. Tim Duncan as a franchise anchor, and Popovich as the mastermind and master motivator.

Each title seems distinct in terms of the dominant style teams deployed — from Duncan and David Robinson early, to the pace-space-depth championship the Spurs charged to in 2014, where it was impossible to predict which way the Spurs would attack.

The NBA didn’t know what it wanted to be during the initial post-Jordan period. The way the rules drastically changed over the first decade of the millennium reflected that; It was the bump-and-grind, hard to score game that made early 2000s basketball harder to embrace for anyone besides the hardcore fans and purists. By the end of the decade, the Phoenix Suns’ seven-seconds-or-less style was copycatted and co-opted by other teams, in large part because it was more enjoyable.

Despite the Spurs not having the personnel to play that way for 82 games, they could put on a show in a series with the Suns, in the 2005 West finals. It was as entertaining a series as a five-game romp could be — Popovich made sure his teams could play in perfect conditions as well as you while also rumble in the mud better than you.

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Popovich found a way to not only work within the system but to borrow from it, beat teams who did things better and win with Duncan as the unmovable anchor.

His gift was seemingly having the clarity in knowing exactly how to build a team and coach one that could compete yearly, even through the confusion.

His acerbic nature, curt with reporters both on television (with the late Craig Sager) and elsewhere, belied his ability to be the ultimate learner, and thus, the ultimate leader. He and his team’s perceived greatness was questioned because they couldn’t put together back-to-back championships like dynasties of the time, and there were a couple weird playoff knockouts, notably falling to an eighth seeded Memphis Grizzlies team in the first round in 2011.

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But Popovich kept tweaking around the edges, sometimes making major changes, and the Spurs kept coming and enduring through the wild storms the NBA has thrown at every franchise, every champion.

Perhaps the third and fourth titles the Spurs won, in 2005 and 2007, are most similar. Ironically it was those championships that seemed to cement the Spurs as a signature, historic NBA franchise as opposed to one who happened to win during a period where the future flag bearers were in incubators.

Popovich had begun to loosen the reins a little, allowing Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili more freedom to explore while still feeding Duncan in the post. And then later, letting everyone know who would listen that a quiet youngster named Kawhi Leonard would carry the franchise after Duncan’s days were done.

That showed a dedication to process and divorcing a certain amount of ego, because even the best coaches are married to their styles and ideologies, especially when there’s multiple rings to their name.

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Popovich’s greatest triumph was arguably in the aftermath of disaster. The Spurs were less than 30 seconds away from clinching a fifth title in Miami against LeBron James — who missed out on a unanimous MVP by one vote in 2013 — before everything that could go wrong did go wrong in Game 6.

Popovich pulled Duncan from the game on Miami’s final possession in regulation, and the Spurs’ lack of size led to Chris Bosh snagging an offensive rebound and Ray Allen triple for one of the most historic sequences in league history.

Miami won that game and Game 7 at home to complete the comeback, as victors. The failure gnawed at Popovich and the Spurs for the next full season, and not everybody recovers from heartbreak.

Especially a team without a supernova in his prime.

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But Popovich deftly managed his roster to keep 10 players hungry and satiated, not playing anyone over 29 minutes a night. Leonard wasn’t yet in full bloom, while Duncan was getting close to the end.

They employed a pass-and-cut heavy offense, focusing on the movement and 3-point shooting you see today — leading the league in 3-point percentage and assists.

Still, though, the Spurs won an NBA-best 62 games, beat MVP Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder in six games before another showdown against James and the Heat.

If 2013 was a classic, 2014 was no contest. Very rarely is a team so focused and single-minded yet still possessing the mental stamina to complete the mission — demolishing the Heat in five games by a record margin.

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That credit, in large part, goes to Popovich — both in style and motivation. In a way it’s the most unexpected of his five titles, in another it’s most emblematic of his style, even if the Spurs didn’t triumph.

It was hard to get back to that stage after the Leonard divorce — one of the few blemishes on Popovich’s resume. Whatever happened largely lies in a shroud of mystery and innuendo, because his former players’ loyalty to him is Dean Smith-esque.

He is as synonymous with the Spurs as Smith is with North Carolina basketball, even though both had unenviable tasks. Smith, because the late coach stepped down in 1997, and Popovich, because the NBA is such a player’s league.

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But just as Carolina’s system produced many pros and still abides by so many Smith principles, the Spurs will probably follow Popovich’s groundwork well after he’s gone.

And one of those principles is staying amenable, and staying flexible. Building a consistent winner in a market like San Antonio isn’t easy. Before Robinson showed up in 1989, the franchise’s greatest player was George Gervin — and you’d have to go a long way before pinpointing the next best.

They weren’t the woebegone Los Angeles Clippers, but they were far from NBA royalty. We think of the Spurs as one of the golden franchises in a sterling era of the league, but there’s only a few built from the ground up and not having its roots from the early days of the league.

Popovich laid it brick by brick, and while he was lucky to find a franchise willing to embrace his zigging while the world zags, they were lucky to have him — a stable leader who only had core tenets to abide by.

And those tenets will guide the franchise as he transitions into the next phase of his own leadership.