Gregg Popovich is no longer the Spurs’ head coach, but he’s played a vital role behind the scenes in San Antonio’s rise this season.
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SAN ANTONIO — Devin Vassell can’t wait to hear what El Jefe has to say. He’s sitting at a podium in the southeast corner of the gym but can see his former coach and current mentor all the way across the room. A little white head of hair, a dot in the distance, with a long cane and an undercover smile.
Vassell, the 25-year-old wing, has become one of the vets of this young Spurs team, a steady hand who always keeps his cool. He walks around the building with the demeanor of a shooter who knows it’s going down every time. It won’t, but that doesn’t change a thing.
It’s easy to think that way when he has the NBA’s all-time winningest coach pumping confidence into him.
Vassell knows when he goes over there, Gregg Popovich is going to keep it real, give him some nuggets of wisdom and have him feeling back on top of the world.
“At the end of the day, he’s always giving you feedback, and he’s telling you the truth and honesty,” Vassell said. “That’s what you need to hear because it’s a lot of BS that might go around. But you need to hear the truth, you need to hear what’s going on, and he’ll do that for sure.”
It’s a common theme from everyone on the Spurs who has been mentored by Popovich this season in his new role after he retired from coaching last year. Current coach Mitch Johnson stepped in on an interim basis in November 2024 after Popovich suffered a stroke. After the season, Popovich held a news conference where he announced that he would step away from coaching and take on the new role of “El Jefe” (Spanish for “The Boss”), wearing a shirt that said as much. He is formally listed as the president of basketball operations, but his role appears to be focused on providing behind-the-scenes support and guidance to Johnson, his successor, and everyone in the locker room.
“He’s been a big part of this whole year,” rookie Carter Bryant told The Athletic. “It’s been amazing. Not everybody has the greatest coach of all time just kind of sitting there in their laps. I just try to take it up as much as I can.”
The 20-year-old Bryant has played well enough to hold down a rotation spot for a 62-win contender deep into the postseason, often earning his spot over Harrison Barnes, an NBA champion in 2015. Bryant never played for Pop and just met him back in the fall. But he quickly sought out the coaching legend as a resource, and El Jefe has been that and more for him.
“Sometimes he calls me so fast after the game that we’re still in the locker room and I can’t even answer it,” Bryant said. “He texts me damn near after every game. I probably talk to him on the phone three times a week.”
Bryant is not alone. It was an open secret within the team that Popovich was forging or maintaining relationships with each player all season long. He talks to Keldon Johnson, the longest-tenured Spurs player, every day. Second-year guard Steph Castle leans on Popovich often for advice and help navigating the season. Whether they played for Popovich for seven years or seven days, he’s been locked in for them.
During the season, Popovich would poke his head out at practice once in a blue moon while the media were present, holding court by what used to be his court. He would sit and observe as players would come over, one by one, for a debriefing. He’d often put his hand on their shoulder, demonstrate some sort of X’s-and-O’s tip from his seat and sometimes walk around to say something to players or coaches standing on the sidelines.
Recently, Popovich has started to emerge more from the shadows. The players have come to expect that when they’re in San Antonio, any time they show up to work, Popovich may be there. Spurs CEO RC Buford said Popovich was in the gym at least four times a week rehabbing from his stroke, often with Tim Duncan or other Spurs legends visiting town.
“It’s the reason why, with Pop’s stroke rehabilitation, Tim’s in the gym with him every day, and that’s not because Pop is telling him to be there,” Buford told The Athletic last month. “It’s because Tim feels the emotional connection to want to be there in the ways that Pop was there for him. Anytime people are in town, they’ll be in there.”
Even when the Spurs land, Popovich’s presence is felt. Earlier this week, Popovich was spotted talking to Victor Wembanyama when the team plane landed after the Spurs’ star was ejected from Game 4 of their second-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves for elbowing Naz Reid in the neck.
“He maybe wanted to make a statement, or make his talking even more impactful, by being there,” Wembanyama said. “He gives feedback and talks to us regularly throughout our series, throughout our games. As always, when he speaks, everybody listens.”
But this was far from a one-off thing. Popovich has been waiting by the runway multiple times throughout the season.
“We know what his car looks like. So when we see his car, we know he’s there,” reserve point guard Jordan McLaughlin said. “It’s nice to know he’s in our corner and always watching us.”
Johnson and his staff maintain autonomy over the day-to-day operations. It’s their team, and Pop is there for support. Popovich sits in with the coaching staff from time to time, more frequently as the young Spurs embark on a run at the championship. When the Spurs were in a film session following a practice earlier in this second-round series, Popovich was the first person to emerge from the vicinity of the film room. Vassell said Popovich helped out a lot in that film session.
“He was just there watching film. He loves basketball,” McLaughlin said. “He’s around anytime he can be.”
But he’s mostly carried out his impact at an individual level, helping players such as Vassell and Bryant find their focus while seeing the bigger picture.
“I think that’s one big thing, respecting the game and not taking any of this for granted,” Vassell said. “And just with life, he’s taught me so much stuff off the court, whether it’s family or giving back in the community, he’s always had that at his forefront, and I appreciate him for that.”
Popovich plays a distinct role in the coach-to-player communication pipeline. Each player has an assistant coach assigned to him for his development, which includes coordinating and executing all on-court training and film study. The assistants are responsible for managing the players’ emotions and preparedness, helping them navigate the challenges of the season. Then there are the core assistant coaches, such as associate head coach Sean Sweeney, who typically play a more balanced role of coordinating game-plan strategy, making big-picture decisions with the head coach while maintaining touchpoints with the players. Front-bench assistants tend to have players for whom they are the primary coaches as well, though their duties are split more broadly.
A head coach, such as Johnson now, must maintain their own relationships with everyone on the roster while making all of the micro and macro decisions about what the team will do as a whole. Head coaches set the tone for priorities for each player. Great head coaches are able to make the players feel as if there is still a close relationship amid all of those responsibilities.
The El Jefe role allows Popovich to fill some of the gaps in the overall process, ranging from specific on-court instruction to offering a bigger-picture perspective on mindset.
“He’s speaking life into you,” Bryant said. “A lot of times, there’s some things you need to hear from different people. Sometimes it clicks when it’s not the constant voice that you’re hearing for 82 games out of the year.
It is not uncommon for franchise legends to be involved with players from a distance. In Boston, late Hall of Fame coach and player Tommy Heinsohn would poke his head in the locker room to speak with key Celtics players after tough losses. Some teams will have former coaches serve as senior advisers who continue to provide guidance from time to time. Popovich appears to be turning the El Jefe role into his own version of that, displaying his signature ability to forge relationships with players while easing up a bit on the throttle now that he is no longer in charge of managing the whole program.
“It’s funny because you hear the stories about him being tough on guys and, obviously, he’s not my head coach, so I don’t kind of get that same experience,” Bryant said. “But I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ This dude is the sweetest, nicest guy. He’s dope.”
With Popovich’s support, Bryant said the playoffs have actually been less nerve-wracking for him than the beginning of the season. The need to perform to earn minutes produced what he called “unnecessary pressure,” and it was taking his joy of the game away. Then, Pop called and told him to play free and have fun.
“When you think about it at the end of the day, you’re grateful to be healthy, you’re grateful to wake up, you’re grateful to do all these things and have all these things in your life on a daily basis,” Bryant said. “Basketball’s going to be basketball.”
Now Bryant, like the rest of this young Spurs team, is playing free and having fun. The Spurs have exceeded every expectation this season, thanks in large part to Johnson and his staff having one of the best performances in the league. But running a team takes a village, and El Jefe has continued to do his part.
As the Spurs find themselves one win away from a showdown with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals, Bryant will play some role, big or small.
Whatever happens, he’ll have to race back to the locker room, because he knows his phone will be ringing.
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Jared Weiss is a staff writer covering the San Antonio Spurs and Victor Wembanyama for The Athletic. He has covered the Celtics since 2011, co-founding CLNS Media Network while in college before covering the team for SB Nation’s CelticsBlog and USA Today. Before coming to The Athletic, Weiss spent a decade working for the government, primarily as a compliance bank regulator. Follow Jared on X @JaredWeissNBA.
