By Mike Finger, Columnist | San Antonio Express-News (SAEN), 2024-11-13 15:50:55
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
2024年3月22日，星期五，在德克萨斯州圣安东尼奥的弗罗斯特银行中心，圣安东尼奥马刺队中锋维克托·文班亚马(Victor Wembanyama)在对阵孟菲斯灰熊队的比赛前与主教练格雷格·波波维奇(Gregg Popovich)交谈。
马刺队会给格雷格·波波维奇(Gregg Popovich)所有他需要的时间。他们这样做并非因为他们亏欠这位队史最伟大的篮球教练。
他们这样做是因为他们亏欠他的孙辈们。
波波维奇会拼尽全力恢复健康。他会像那个在他对球员们讲述过无数次的寓言中的石匠一样，每天早上醒来，敲打石头。他这样做并非因为他想带领球队再夺总冠军。
他这样做是因为他至少还想和他的孙辈们再共进一次盛大的晚餐。
现在，生活才是最重要的。对波波维奇来说，生活一直都是最重要的。近三十年来，这位NBA历史上胜场最多的教练一直告诉所有愿意倾听的人，如果他们认为这些比赛才是这个世界上真正重要的事情，那他们就是傻瓜。
如果他们现在认为他的看法发生了改变，那他们仍然是傻瓜。
虽然大声说出来可能听起来很 surreal，但波波维奇有可能再也不会执教了。这未必是最可能的结果，但对于一位马刺队周三证实于11月2日“轻微中风”的75岁老人来说，退休显然是一个可能的选择。
整个球队上下都承认，关于波波维奇何时或是否会回到他自1996年12月接任球队主教练以来一直占据的板凳席位，目前还没有做出任何决定。
然而，可以肯定的是，球队正在以米奇·约翰逊(Mitch Johnson)将继续担任代理主教练至少到新年的假设下运作。约翰逊这位37岁的前斯坦福大学控球后卫，在马刺队的智囊团中花了十年时间才走到今天的位置。这项任命的潜在期限是球队选择他的一个重要因素。
如果波波维奇预计只缺席一两场比赛，马刺队可能会选择经验丰富的助理教练布雷特·布朗(Brett Brown)——前费城76人队主教练——来顶替。而在约翰逊身上，他们看到的是一个充满活力、拥有专业知识的年轻人，他能够胜任这个可能持续数月的工作，尤其是在这个赛季，球队希望围绕球星中锋维克托·文班亚马(Victor Wembanyama)取得重大进步。
当然，文班亚马是波波维奇两周前的周六出现在弗罗斯特银行中心的一个重要原因，这距离人们开始询问他退休计划的时间至少有十年了。当时，当马刺队在2013年和2014年仍然打进NBA总决赛时，他发誓只要蒂姆·邓肯(Tim Duncan)退役，他也会退役。
当邓肯在2016年夏天退役时，波波维奇67岁。马刺队拥有正在成为超级巨星的科怀·伦纳德(Kawhi Leonard)，并且刚刚引进了拉马库斯·阿尔德里奇(LaMarcus Aldridge)。他们仍然是争冠球队。波波维奇当时无法离开。
2021年东京奥运会后，这位前空军情报官员实现了带领美国队夺得金牌的毕生梦想，72岁的他也无法离开。虽然马刺队不再像以前那样赢球，但波波维奇重新发现了教导年轻球员并看着他们成长的乐趣。
然后呢？当马刺队幸运地赢得了选秀状元签，得到了自勒布朗·詹姆斯(LeBron James)以来最受瞩目的少年天才呢？
无论是不是七十多岁，世界上任何一位教练都不会错过为文班执教的机会。
因此，波波维奇留了下来，并始终保持着一种近乎持续的积极和愉悦的态度，这在他五个总冠军赛季期间并不经常公开表露。进入本赛季，球队周围的一些人猜测这可能是他的最后一个赛季，但人们已经猜测了好几年了。关于他的未来，没有任何保证。
现在仍然没有。由于波波维奇坚持将大多数个人事务保密，马刺队在过去10天里不愿透露任何有关他健康状况的信息。然而，最终，很明显，需要发布关于中风的公告，即使仅仅是为了平息不断的传言，并澄清球队代表不断说波波维奇“没事”的含义。
据球队称，波波维奇已经开始了康复计划，预计会完全康复。
然而，完全康复并不需要他重新回到原来的工作岗位。82场比赛的赛程，加上横跨东西海岸的旅行、深夜和清晨，即使对一些身体素质最好的运动员来说也够残酷的。一个75岁的千万富翁，刚刚经历了一次中风——无论是否“轻微”——还想让自己再次经历这一切吗？他的家人希望他这样做吗？
八个月前，在旧金山的一次客场之旅中，波波维奇看起来无比自豪和高兴。他谈到了他的孙子——邓肯女儿的青年篮球队友——因为抱住对方球队的一个孩子并抢断球而吃到了一次技术犯规。
当被问及爷爷对这位追随他脚步的年轻人说了些什么时，波波维奇承认他“让孩子的父母去处理了”。
“我不在场，”波波维奇说。“他们是这么告诉我的。”
这样的故事还会有更多。有些故事会在盛大华丽的球队晚宴上讲述，有些则会在规模较小的家庭聚会上讲述。有些故事发生在全国电视转播的季后赛对决之前，有些则发生在社区教堂联盟比赛之后，一个小学生忘了运球。
马刺队会给波波维奇所有他需要的时间，让他回到这一切中去。
他知道哪些才是真正最重要的。
San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich argues a call with an official during the second half of their game with the Milwaukee Bucks at the Frost Bank Center on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Milwaukee beat the Spurs 125-121.
San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich celebrates Friday, Mar 11, 2022 at the AT&T Center in San Antonio with San Antonio Spurs center Jakob Poeltl (25), left, and San Antonio Spurs forward Keldon Johnson (3) after the Spurs beat the Utah Jazz 104-102 to give Popovich 1,336 regular season wins, the most in NBA history.
San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich disagrees with a foul call on the Spurs during the second quarter against the Chicago Bulls at Frost Bank Center on Friday, Dec. 8, 2023, in San Antonio, Texas. The Bulls defeated the Spurs, 121-112.
Coach Gregg Popovich (right) share a lighter moment with Josh Carlton, a summer league roster invite, at the Spurs practice facility on Friday, June 30, 2023.
San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, second from left, talks to guard Blake Wesley (14) during a time out in the first half of their game with the Milwaukee Bucks at the Frost Bank Center on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Milwaukee beat the Spurs 125-121.
San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, center, disembarks from the team bus on Thursday afternoon, March 14, 2024, in Austin, Texas. The Spurs will be spending the weekend in Austin for their I-35 series games at the Moody Center. They’ll face the Denver Nuggets on Friday, March 15, and the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday, March 17.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is shown with San Antonio street artist Colton Valentine at the artist’s mural of presumptive Spurs draft pick Victor Wembanyama.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich talks with forward Victor Wembanyama during a time out in the first half of their NBA game with the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Frost Bank Center on Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024. San Antonio beat Minnesota 113-112.
San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich reacts to receiving a technical foul during the second half against the Golden State Warriors at Frost Bank Center on Sunday, March 31, 2024, in San Antonio, Texas. The Warriors defeated the Spurs 117-113.
San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich jokes with Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green, front left to back, forward Jonathan Kuminga, and head coach Steve Kerr before heading to the locker room at Frost Bank Center on Monday, March 11, 2024, in San Antonio, Texas. The Spurs fell to the Warriors, 112-102.
点击查看原文：After Gregg Popovich's stroke, Spurs take nothing for granted
After Gregg Popovich’s stroke, Spurs take nothing for granted
San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama (1) talks to head coach Gregg Popovich before facing the Memphis Grizzlies at Frost Bank Center on Friday, March 22, 2024, in San Antonio, Texas.
The Spurs will give Gregg Popovich all the time he needs. They will do this not because they owe it to the greatest basketball coach they ever had.
They will do it because they owe it to his grandchildren.
Popovich will work like hell to get better. He will wake up every morning and pound the rock, just like the stonecutter in the parable he told his players a million times, and he will do this not because he wants to lead them to another championship.
He will do it because there is at least one more big dinner he’d love to share with them.
Life is what’s important now. To Popovich, life is what always was. For darn near three decades, the man who won more games than any coach in NBA history told everyone who’d listen that they’d be fools to think those games were what really mattered in this world.
They’d be fools now to think his outlook on that has changed.
As surreal as it might sound to say out loud, there is a chance Popovich never will coach again. This is not necessarily the likeliest outcome, but retirement is an obvious possibility for a 75-year-old man who the Spurs confirmed Wednesday suffered a “mild stroke” on Nov. 2.
Those throughout the organization acknowledge no determination has been made on when or even if Popovich will return to his spot on the bench, which he occupied since taking over as the franchise’s head coach in December 1996.
It is safe to say, however, that the team is operating under the assumption that Mitch Johnson – the 37-year-old former Stanford point guard who spent a decade working his way through the ranks of the Spurs’ braintrust – will continue to serve as acting head coach at least into the new year. The potential length of the assignment played an important part in why the team chose him.
Had Popovich only been projected to miss a game or two, the Spurs might have tabbed veteran assistant Brett Brown – a former head coach in Philadelphia – to step in. In Johnson, they see a young guy with the energy and know-how to grow into a role that might last months, during a season in which the franchise hopes to make significant progress around star center Victor Wembanyama.
Wembanyama, of course, is a huge reason why Popovich was at Frost Bank Center two Saturdays ago, at least a decade after people started asking about his retirement. Back then, when the Spurs still were making trips to the NBA Finals in 2013 and 2014, he swore he’d quit whenever Tim Duncan did.
When Duncan retired in the summer of 2016, Popovich was 67. The Spurs had Kawhi Leonard, who was becoming a superstar, and just added LaMarcus Aldridge. They were still contenders. Popovich couldn’t walk away then.
After the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, when the former Air Force intelligence officer fulfilled his lifelong dream of leading Team USA to a gold medal, he couldn’t walk away at age 72, either. The Spurs weren’t winning as much, but Popovich had rediscovered how much he enjoyed teaching young players and watching them grow.
And then? When the Spurs were lucky enough to win the lottery that landed them the league’s most hyped teenager since LeBron James?
Septuagenarian or not, no coach in the world could pass up the chance to call plays for Wembanyama.
So Popovich stuck around, maintaining a near-constant air of positivity and delight that he didn’t often make public during five championship years. Heading into this season, some around the team speculated it might be his last, but people had been guessing that for years. When it came to his future, there were no guarantees.
There still aren’t. Knowing how private Popovich insists on keeping most personal matters, the Spurs were reluctant to divulge any information at all about his health over the past 10 days. Eventually, though, it became clear an announcement about the stroke needed to be made, if for no other reason than to quiet the constant whispers, and to clarify what franchise representatives meant when they kept saying Popovich was OK.
Per the team, Popovich has started a rehabilitation program and is expected to make a full recovery.
Making a full recovery would not require him to take his old job back, though. The rigors of an 82-game schedule with bicoastal travel, late nights and early mornings are brutal enough on some of the most physically fit athletes in the world. Does a 75-year-old multimillionaire coming off a stroke – “mild” or not – want to put himself through that again? Does his family want him to?
Eight months ago, on a road trip in San Francisco, Popovich looked as proud and as giddy as I’ve ever seen him. He was talking about his grandson – a youth basketball teammate of Duncan’s daughter – earning a technical foul by tackling a kid on the other team and stealing the ball.
When asked what grandpa told the youngster about following in his footsteps, Popovich conceded he “let mom and dad do that.”
“I wasn’t there,” Popovich said. “They told me the story.”
There will be more of those stories. Some will be told at big, fancy team dinners, and some at smaller family affairs. Some will be preceded by nationally televised playoff showdowns, and some will take place after neighborhood church-league games where a grammar-schooler forgets to dribble.
The Spurs will give Popovich all the time he needs to get back to them all.
Knowing which ones really matter the most.
San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich argues a call with an official during the second half of their game with the Milwaukee Bucks at the Frost Bank Center on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Milwaukee beat the Spurs 125-121.
San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich celebrates Friday, Mar 11, 2022 at the AT&T Center in San Antonio with San Antonio Spurs center Jakob Poeltl (25), left, and San Antonio Spurs forward Keldon Johnson (3) after the Spurs beat the Utah Jazz 104-102 to give Popovich 1,336 regular season wins, the most in NBA history.
San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich disagrees with a foul call on the Spurs during the second quarter against the Chicago Bulls at Frost Bank Center on Friday, Dec. 8, 2023, in San Antonio, Texas. The Bulls defeated the Spurs, 121-112.
Coach Gregg Popovich (right) share a lighter moment with Josh Carlton, a summer league roster invite, at the Spurs practice facility on Friday, June 30, 2023.
San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, second from left, talks to guard Blake Wesley (14) during a time out in the first half of their game with the Milwaukee Bucks at the Frost Bank Center on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024. Milwaukee beat the Spurs 125-121.
San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, center, disembarks from the team bus on Thursday afternoon, March 14, 2024, in Austin, Texas. The Spurs will be spending the weekend in Austin for their I-35 series games at the Moody Center. They’ll face the Denver Nuggets on Friday, March 15, and the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday, March 17.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is shown with San Antonio street artist Colton Valentine at the artist’s mural of presumptive Spurs draft pick Victor Wembanyama.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich talks with forward Victor Wembanyama during a time out in the first half of their NBA game with the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Frost Bank Center on Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024. San Antonio beat Minnesota 113-112.
San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich reacts to receiving a technical foul during the second half against the Golden State Warriors at Frost Bank Center on Sunday, March 31, 2024, in San Antonio, Texas. The Warriors defeated the Spurs 117-113.
San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich jokes with Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green, front left to back, forward Jonathan Kuminga, and head coach Steve Kerr before heading to the locker room at Frost Bank Center on Monday, March 11, 2024, in San Antonio, Texas. The Spurs fell to the Warriors, 112-102.
By Mike Finger, Columnist, via San Antonio Express-News