The tough news keeps eating away at the foundation of the Spurs.
After being away from the team for all of 2025, the franchise he has built from the bottom up over the past three decades, fans have been clamoring for any information about when coach Gregg Popovich would return to where he belongs at the head of the San Antonio Spurs bench following a mild stroke in late 2024.
Well, on Saturday night, they got their answer, with ESPN’s senior NBA insider Shams Charania officially reporting that Pop is not expected to return to the Spurs this season, with his future in San Antonio very much in doubt moving forward.
“San Antonio Spurs’ Hall of Fame coach Gregg Popovich is not expected to return this season,” Charania wrote, “And his future is uncertain as he recovers from a mild stroke suffered in November, league sources tell ESPN.”
Since Popovich has taken a leave of absence from the Spurs, he has been replaced by assistant coach Mitch Johnson, who began his career as a player for the Stanford Cardinal before taking the leap into coaching over the last decade as a member of the San Antonio staff. While the team has not exactly been clicking on all cylinders with their long-time head coach away getting stronger, their playoff hopes and aspirations on the back burner after their superstar Victor Wembanyama was ruled out for the rest of the year on Thursday with deep vein thrombosis, they have shone enough flashes to justify trading for De’Aaron Fox, who should theoretically help to spearhead a contending core alongside the reigning Rookie of the Year.
“It is wild to think of the circumstances and the situations that we’ve been through as a team this year,” Spurs point guard Chris Paul said after Wembanyama’s latest medical setback. “But I think you guys know when situations happen in your family, that, somehow, someway brings you closer.”
When the club first named Johnson acting head coach, they did so with plans for Popovich to eventually return. Popovich even went so far as to release a statement in December thanking the community, the Spurs organization and friends for their outpouring of support.
Embed from Getty Images“No one is more excited to see me return to the bench than the talented individuals who have been leading my rehabilitation process,” Popovich joked in the statement. “They’ve quickly learned that I’m less than coachable.”
Popovich’s right-hand man and architect of most of the franchise’s title teams, Spurs CEO RC Buford said in January the coach was “attacking his rehab.”
“The same resilience he’s shown over the course of our career as a coach, he’s approaching his return in his rehab in an incredibly unique way,” Buford said. “The relationships he’s had with former players and the care they’re sharing with him is amazing, and his improvement continues.”
Popovich, meanwhile, turned 76 in January and potentially leaves the game as the oldest coach in NBA history. He passed the previous record in 2020 held by Hubie Brown, who was 71 when he coached his final game with the Memphis Grizzlies. Popovich has the most career wins as a head coach in NBA history.
Initially joining the Spurs all the way back in 1996 after serving as an assistant with the Golden State Warriors, Popovich has become the gold standard of coaching at the NBA level, winning five NBA Championships (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2014), three NBA Coach of the Year awards, and four opportunities to coach the All-Star game. Though he may be the oldest active head coach in the NBA, he was still thought to be the best man to coach the French sensation Wemby to greatness in the lead-up to the 2023 NBA Draft and has largely lived up to those expectations in San Antonio.
Will Popovich return to the NBA and his spot on the bench coaching the Spurs at some point in the future? It is difficult to say at this point but considering how the last few months have turned out, it would be smart for the Spurs to come up with contingency plans and begin preparing for life without their Hall of Fame coach, as his time on the bench will be up sooner than later, no matter how his recovery shakes out.
