Spurs hire Mitch Johnson as the head coach after Gregg Popovich goes down

San Antonio Opers already has a replacement for the legendary head coach Gregg Popovich. The team hired Mitch Johnson as the next head coach.

The 38 -year -old Johnson served as the temporary head coach of the team last season after Popovich failed after the stroke. Spurs finished 34-48 and missed the playoffs under the direction of Johnson.

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Popovich spent most of the NBA season of the 2024-25 years away from the team and in recovery. In the end, he was excluded during the season, but achieved sufficient progress to meet with spurs personally after the All-Star break.

Soon after the end of the season, there were reports that “spurs will allow Popovich” to decide whether he will return and train the team for the NBA 2025-26 season. In April, the 76 -year -old Popovich was taken to the hospital after the experience of the medical episode in the restaurant. He was released and, as they said, was in a stable state of the house.

On Friday, Popovich announced that he was resigned as the head coach of the team after 29 seasons. He leaves this role as the most victorious coach in the history of the NBA. Popovich will remain in the organization and will serve as the president of the spur team.

Meanwhile, Johnson will officially become the head coach of the “spur” after almost a decade with the team. After he starred in Stanford in college and spent time in Europe and in the G League, Johnson was ultimately hired to train Austin spur – a branch of G League in San Antonio Spurs – in 2016. He led the team to the League of G in 2018 before joining San Antonio as an assistant head coach led by Popovich in 2019.

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In this role, Johnson worked as a temporary head coach of the team twice as before the NBA 2024-25 season. He filled the game in 2021, when Popovich visited the Glory Hall of Tim Duncan. Johnson also trained the team for the game in 2023, when Popovich was unavailable from the illness. Johnson went 1-1 in these competitions.

After he was drawn into the main role last season, Johnson will now have a complete off -season to adequately prepare for this work. Spurs are looking for an improvement after the stormy year, and Johnson will need to show that he can direct the command forward. The return of Viktor Vembanyama from the injury will certainly help, like two choices of the team in the first round in the NBA draft 2025.

Although the future of the team looks bright, in the footsteps of Popovich it will not be an easy task. It is impossible to turn into line with high standards of Popovich during his stay as the head coach of the team, and Johnson will find a way to separate himself from this heritage so that he can raise his own path forward.