A decade ago, when a number of NBA coaches lauded Gregg Popovich for the willingness to welcome newcomers to his fraternity, Frank Vogel called the San Antonio Spurs coach the league’s “godfather.”
How true that remains in 2025. Popovich’s fingerprints are literally everywhere across the NBA.
Back then, when Brad Stevens accepted the coaching job for the Boston Celtics, Popovich phoned him, offered some advice, and the two developed a close relationship forged by a shared passion for coaching.
Nowadays, the fraternity’s ties to Popovich are even more familial. Most of them knew him well before they sniffed a head coaching gig. And if they did not, they knew someone who did. In fact, we can trace every one of the league’s current head coaches to Popovich in three degrees of separation or fewer.
(I will give you a moment to conduct the exercise in your head before we put it down on paper.)
Popovich stepped down as head coach of the Spurs on Friday to accept a position as team president. He suffered a stroke in early November and had been on an indefinite leave of absence ever since. Mitch Johnson, who has spent the past decade in San Antonio’s system, has served as an interim replacement.
Five other head coaches — Will Hardy, Steve Kerr, Doc Rivers, Quin Snyder and Ime Udoka — directly played for and/or coached under Popovich. Mike Brown, Mike Budenholzer and Taylor Jenkins, who were all fired from their gigs this season, also coached in Popovich’s system within the Spurs organization.
Two more, Erik Spoelstra and Jamahl Mosley, served as Popovich’s assistants in some capacity during his four-year term at USA Basketball’s helm. So tie a third of the league to Pop in one degree of separation.
Another 14 coaches — Kenny Atkinson, J.B. Bickerstaff, Chauncey Billups, Rick Carlisle, Doug Christie, Willie Green, Tuomas Iisalo, Brian Keefe, Charles Lee, Tyronn Lue, Joe Mazzulla, Darko Rajaković, JJ Redick and Tom Thibodeau — either played or coached for someone who either played or coached for Popovich.
When Billy Donovan and Jason Kidd first became head coaches, each named a Popovich disciple to his staff. Mark Daigneault also shared that Oklahoma City Thunder staff with Donovan and Monty Williams.
That leaves four coaches — David Adelman, Jordi Fernandez, Chris Finch and Nick Nurse — who required a third degree of separation. All four assisted coaches who assisted coaches who assisted Popovich, if it makes sense. A coaching tree is in full bloom, its branches reaching every corner of the NBA (except for the Phoenix Suns, and how much do you want to bet we can trace their next coach’s lineage back to Pop).
Nurse was the most difficult connection. Nevertheless, his first professional coaching job on this side of the pond came with the now-defunct Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League. The head coach of that team: Bryan Gates, a longtime assistant to Williams, who both played and coached for Pop.
The loosest connections? Bickerstaff and Carlisle. Bickerstaff played two seasons of college ball at Oregon State, where Chad Forcier served as an assistant. Forcier later became an assistant to Popovich. Likewise, Carlisle served as an assistant to PJ Carlesimo before Carlesimo served as a Popovich assistant.
True to form, both Bickerstaff and Carlisle have closer ties to Popovich than these degrees of separation might suggest. Bickerstaff attended Popovich’s basketball camp as a child, because his father, Bernie — a longtime NBA coach who assisted two Popovich disciples — was friends with the San Antonio legend.
Similarly, when Carlisle was first passed over for an NBA head coaching gig in 2000, Popovich invited him to spend several days of training camp with the Spurs, and yet another coaching mentorship was forged.
“He didn’t need me to come down there,” said Carlisle, via Fieldhouse Files. “He was doing it because he’s a giver. He understood at that time that was something that would lift me up — and it did. The coaches in this league that have known him for all these years really look up to him in a very, very special way.”
Because Popovich has influenced every one of their styles whether they know it or not. A true godfather.
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