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The winningest coach in NBA history was honored with a banner raised in his honor on Sunday afternoon at the Frost Bank Center, home of the San Antonio Spurs.
The banner went up without speeches and ceremony before the season opener against the Brooklyn Nets, just as the NBA Hall of Famer and former Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich had wanted.
He coached his teams the same way, instilling the message: never take yourselves too seriously.
The Associated Press reported Coach Pop in the past has chalked up the 1,390 wins now displayed on the banner in the rafters to Spurs teams full of Hall of Famers.
“What the hell am I doing here? How could this happen?” Popovich said during his 2023 Hall of Fame induction speech. “It’s hard to describe, because I’m a Division III guy.”
The banner also displays five stars for each of the five NBA championships won during his tenure as coach.
Popovich’s coaching career began as an assistant at the Air Force Academy in 1973. He became head coach of Division III Pomona-Pitzer in 1979. He became head coach of the Spurs in 1996 before he was forced to step down in May 2025.
He had a stroke at the team’s arena on Nov. 2, 2024, and did not coach again, though he remains with the team as president, AP reported.
Popovich's successor—-current head coach—Mitch Johnson—said Coach Pop's influence on the team continues.
“Obviously, what an honor to have him be included with that group,” Johnson said to AP. “Can’t say enough in terms of 29 years as a head coach, longer with the organization, five championships. Everything that you see, hear or have heard regarding this organization, he has his imprint all over it. … Just in terms of the importance of everything — how we do everything and the attention to detail and the consistency and the love, blood, sweat and tears that he put into it.”
Pop's banner is good company with a set of retired jerseys, honoring David Robinson’s No. 50, Sean Elliott’s No. 32, Avery Johnson’s No. 6, Bruce Bowen’s No. 12, Tim Duncan’s No. 21, Manu Ginobili’s No. 20 and Tony Parker’s No. 9.
And the newest Spurs star, briefly coached by Popovich, has been tearing up the courts to start the new Spurs season.
Victor Wembanyama became the first player in NBA history to rack up 100 points and 15 blocks in the first three games of a regular season.
His efforts have the Spurs off to an unbeaten start. They beat the Nets 118-107 on Sunday.
