Gregg Popovich officially retired from coaching two weeks ago when he accepted a job as the San Antonio Spurs president of basketball operations. Most of the best players he coached over his legendary tenure showed up to support him as he became “El Jefe,” and it was great to see him speaking and having fun after months of health issues that had kept him off the sideline.
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Popovich is one of the best coaches to ever hold a clipboard, but he was also one of the most reliably hilarious personalities in sports thanks to his curt sideline interviews and deadpan joke delivery. NBA fans are going to miss seeing him in that capacity.
As Pop prepares to take on his new front office role, it’s the perfect time to look back at one instance in which he showed off what made him so beloved. Let’s go all the way back to 2010, when the Spurs were taking on the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs.
The Mavs were the 2-seed and were feeling good after winning Game 1. They were also riding the high of beating the Spurs each of the last two times they had met in the playoffs, including the previous year. Perhaps that’s why Mark Cuban, then the owner of the Mavs, told reporters, “I hate the Spurs.”
Cuban went on to say that there was still a healthy respect between the in-state rivals, but the statement still drew headlines. Popovich was asked about it during the team’s shootaround the next day. “I don’t think that’s true. I really don’t think that’s true,” Pop said. “That’s exaggeration. I think that if he hated us that much, he wouldn’t have that good barbecue in our locker room after the games.”
Pop played it cool, and the Spurs followed his lead by winning Game 2 in Dallas and taking three of the next four to win the series, giving Cuban even more of a reason to hate the Spurs.
Mark Cuban had ulterior motives with his postgame barbecue spread
Cuban was asked about the postgame feasts he provided when he appeared on All the Smoke last year, and he laughingly revealed that he wasn’t so generous to opposing teams simply out of the goodness of his heart.
“I wanted to embarrass other owners, that’s what it was,” Cuban said. “Guys we would trade for would tell me, ‘I just went from the outhouse to the penthouse,’ and I’m like, I just want to rub it in a little bit. We’re cooking for our guys, just make a little bit more and give it to the other guys.”
Cuban was the majority owner of the Mavs for 23 years, and more than any other owner, he loved to thumb his nose at the establishment and do things his own way. Some of his methods rubbed people wrong, but this is one that even his most hated rivals appreciated.
