By Mike Finger, Columnist | San Antonio Express-News (SAEN), 2025-05-02 14:05:54
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。
即使在经历中风之后，他仍然无处不在。每次训练运球，每次暂停时的围圈，每次晚餐谈话，马刺队的行为举止都像格雷格·波波维奇(Gregg Popovich)在注视着一样，主要是因为没有人能确定他是否真的不在。
当外界猜测这位受人尊敬的教练的健康状况，并想知道他究竟如何能够回归时，最了解他的人会摇摇头，确信他们问错了问题。无论如何，波波维奇都与这份工作、与这支球队、与这些人密不可分。
他怎么可能不回来？即使在去年11月他在霜冻银行中心倒下之前，他已经是NBA历史上执教比赛最年长的人，即使没有任何理由相信任何一个拥有波波维奇的财富和成就的76岁老人会愿意让自己承受那种荒谬的压力，人类天性的典型规则也不适用于这个人。
一位长期在马刺队工作的人员说：“维克托·文班亚马(Victor Wembanyama)不是这个组织中第一个‘外星人’。”
根据官方出生记录，波波维奇于1949年出生于印第安纳州，但在之后的近八十年里，他几乎没有给出其他表明他是这个世界的人的迹象。
作为一名行动迟缓的后卫，作为一名空军学员，以及作为一名三级大学教练，他都表现出了非凡的意志力，而他适应变化的能力或许成为了他最大的优势。在更衣室里，在场边采访中，在面无表情的新闻发布会上，他都展现出了超自然的威慑力，他走遍美国，留下了一笔笔可笑的慷慨的餐厅小费，一份份特别订购的、放在名人堂成员酒店门口的胡萝卜蛋糕，以及来自各行各业的朋友，他们发誓从未见过比他更忠诚、更体贴、更决心永远走下去的人。
所以，当然，那些朋友、那些球员、那些同事都认为，如果有人能回来，那一定是波波维奇。当然，他们认为他会比他们活得更长，即使他们听说他行动不便，声音也不那么洪亮。当然，当他们期待了几个月、却从未真正接受的事情终于发生时，他们还是感到有些惊讶。
波波维奇不再是一名篮球教练了。
这令人难以想象。
而且，至少在某种意义上，这甚至不是真的。
波波维奇最终还是稍微妥协了一点，就在周五。通过一份朴实无华的新闻稿，没有任何盛大的仪式，他让马刺队宣布他将从主教练转任篮球运营总裁，正式卸任了他执掌了29个赛季、赢得了五个NBA总冠军、并且取得的胜利比任何教练都多的职位。
是时候了，每个人都知道这一点。是时候让他专注于从去年秋天让他倒下的健康问题中恢复过来，专注于那些已经在青年比赛中吃到技术犯规而让他高兴的孙子们。是时候让别人来处理训练、界外球战术和球队晚餐了，而且如果波波维奇不相信这位38岁的长期助教米奇·约翰逊(Mitch Johnson)能做到这一点，他是绝不会允许他接手的。
但当然，他仍然是一位教练。当然，当球员即将稍微放松防守，或者即将离开球馆而不加练一次罚球，或者即将不为需要世界关注的人、群体或事业发声时，即使他会因此受到责难，他的声音仍然会在球员的脑海中回响。
这种影响力不会仅仅因为一个职位头衔的改变而消失。在谈论马刺队时，谈论波波维奇最喜欢的寓言已经成为一种陈词滥调，他将这个寓言翻译成六种语言，并悬挂在球队在过去四分之一世纪里居住过的每一个球馆和训练设施中。这是社会改革家雅各布·里斯(Jacob Riis)写的一个关于石匠的故事，他敲打一块石头100次，“没有显露出哪怕一丝裂缝”，但他知道当石头最终裂开时，并非是最后一次敲击的作用，而是之前所有的敲击。
波波维奇敲打他的石头的次数远远超过了100次。而他的马刺队距离看到其中一些敲击的结果还差得很远。
他可能会反驳这一点。多年来，他一直坚称自己与马刺队成为职业体育界最成功的球队之一关系不大，他只是幸运地没有搞砸一系列改变联盟格局的天才球员，从大卫·罗宾逊(David Robinson)和蒂姆·邓肯(Tim Duncan)，到马努·吉诺比利(Manu Ginobili)和托尼·帕克(Tony Parker)，再到科怀·伦纳德(Kawhi Leonard)和后来的文班亚马。
他还会说，无论如何，总冠军从来都不是敲打石头的目的。两年前的夏天，在他作为美国队主教练赢得奥运会金牌，在他打破NBA教练胜场纪录，在他最终同意入选奈史密斯篮球名人堂之后，他重复了他多年来经常提到的一句话。
他说，痴迷于胜利是荒谬的。
“这是一种幻觉，”波波维奇说。“它并不真实存在。”
对波波维奇来说，结果从来都不是最重要的。所以，当他在过去的六个月里拼命地想回到场边，回到那些跨国航班，回到那些球队晚餐，回到成为NBA历史上最伟大球队之一的良知和定义声音时？
他并没有未能回归。
他一直都在那里。
而且他将永远都在那里。
Apr 2, 2014; San Antonio, TX, USA; San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginobili (right), and head coach Gregg Popovich (center), and Tim Duncan (left) talk on the bench during the second half against the Golden State Warriors at AT&T Center. The Spurs won 111-90.
FILE - In this Dec. 2, 2015, file photo, San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, left, talks with forward Tim Duncan (21) during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Milwaukee Bucks in San Antonio. Duncan is back with the Spurs, this time as an assistant coach. Duncan won five championships in a 19-year career with the Spurs. Popovich, in a release distributed by the team, says “it is only fitting, that after I served loyally for 19 years as Tim Duncan’s assistant, that he returns the favor.” (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
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 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.
Head coach Gregg Popovich (L) of the San Antonio Spurs talks with Tony Parker (R) in the first half during Game Two of the NBA Finals against the the Cleveland Cavaliers 10 June 2007 at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas.
Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich talks with game officials as the Spurs play Miami during their pre-season game at the Frost Center on Oct. 13, 2023. Spurs defeated Miami, 120-104.
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, right, speaks with Spurs guard Chris Paul (3) during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Utah Jazz, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Darren Abate)
San Antonio Spurs’ Tim Duncan, left, and coach Gregg Popovich celebrate after defeating the New York Knicks 78-77 to clinch the championship in Game 5 of the 1999 NBA Finals Friday, June 25, 1999, at New York’s Madison Square Garden. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
Spurs’ coach Gregg Popovich is livid after a hard foul by the Mavericks’ during fourth quarter action game four Western Conference Finals at the American Airlines Center in Dallas May 25, 2003. Ref Joe DeRosa tries to calm him down as Spurs Malik Rose, left and Tim Duncan look on. PHOTO BY EDWARD A. ORNELAS/STAFF
Gregg Popovich speaks during his enshrinement at the Basketball Hall of Fame as presenters David Robinson, Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili, from left, listen Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023, in Springfield, Mass. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
San Antonio Spurs legend Manu Ginoboli is congratulated by former coach Gregg Popovich during his number retirement on Thursday night, March 28, 2019, after the Spurs game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Ginobili played for the Spurs from 2002-2018.
San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, right, hugs his point guard Tony Parker during practice Tuesday, June 10, 2003, in East Rutherford, N.J. The Spurs lead the New Jersey Nets two games to one in the NBA finals. (AP Photo/Bill Kostroun)
点击查看原文：Gregg Popovich's presence sure to remain even as he walks away
Gregg Popovich’s presence sure to remain even as he walks away
Even after the stroke, he was everywhere. During every practice dribble, every timeout huddle and every dinner conversation, the Spurs conducted themselves like Gregg Popovich was watching, mainly because no one could be sure he wasn’t.
When outsiders would speculate about the venerable coach’s health and wonder how on earth he could return, those who knew him best would shake their heads, convinced they were asking the wrong question. No matter what, Popovich was inextricable from this job, from this franchise, from these people.
How could he not come back? Even if he’d already been the oldest man ever to coach an NBA game before he collapsed at Frost Bank Center in November, and even if there was no reason to believe that any 76-year-old with Popovich’s wealth and accomplishments would want to subject himself to the rigors of that ridiculously stressful business, the typical rules of human nature did not apply to this man.
“Victor (Wembanyama) was not the first alien in this organization,” a longtime Spurs staffer said.
According to official birth records, Popovich arrived in Indiana in 1949, but over the almost eight decades that followed he gave few other indications he was of this world.
Extraordinarily strong-willed as a slow-footed guard, and as an Air Force cadet, and as a Division III college coach, his ability to adjust became perhaps his greatest strength. Supernaturally intimidating in locker rooms, in sideline interviews and in stone-faced press conferences, he traveled America leaving behind a trail of laughably generous restaurant tips, and specially ordered slices of carrot cake placed outside Hall of Famers’ hotel doors, and friends from every walk of life who swore they’d never met anyone more loyal or more thoughtful or more determined to keep going forever.
So of course those friends and those players and those colleagues thought that if anyone could come back, Popovich could. Of course they figured he’d outlast them, even when they heard that he wasn’t moving so well, and that his voice wasn’t sounding so strong. Of course they were more than a bit surprised on Friday, when something they all anticipated in their heads for months but never could accept in their bones finally happened.
Popovich isn’t a basketball coach anymore.
It’s unimaginable.
And in one sense, at least, it’s not even true.
Popovich at last gave in, just a little bit, on Friday. With a no-frills press release and no pomp nor circumstance, he let the Spurs announce that he was moving from head coach to president of basketball operations, officially walking away from the job he’d held for 29 seasons, five NBA championships, and more victories than anyone who’d ever coached the game.
It was time, and everyone knew it. It was time for him to focus on recovering from the health scare that knocked him off his feet last fall, and on the grandchildren who already are delighting him by picking up technical fouls in youth games. It was time for someone else to handle the practices, and the inbounds plays, and the team dinners, and there’s no way Popovich would have allowed Mitch Johnson to be that person if he didn’t believe the 38-year-old longtime assistant could do it.
But of course he’s still a coach. Of course he’s the guy whose voice echoes in a player’s head when he’s about to let up just a little on defense, or when he’s about to leave the gym without shooting one more free throw, or when he’s about to not speak up on behalf of a person or a group or a cause that needs the world’s attention, even if he gets grief for it.
That influence doesn’t just go away, just because a job title does. It’s become a cliché when talking about the Spurs to talk about Popovich’s favorite parable, the one he’s had translated into a half-dozen languages and hung throughout every arena and practice facility the team has inhabited over the past quarter-century. It’s the one social reformer Jacob Riis wrote, about the stonecutter who hammered away at a rock 100 times “without so much as a crack showing in it,” knowing that when it finally splits, it will not be the final blow that does it but all the blows that came before.
Popovich hammered his rock a whole lot more than 100 times. And his Spurs are not yet close to seeing the results from some of those strikes.
He’d probably argue with this. Over and over through the years, he insisted that he had little to do with the Spurs becoming one of the most successful organizations in professional sports, and that he’d simply been lucky enough not to mess up a preposterous run of league-altering talent, from David Robinson and Tim Duncan, to Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, to Kawhi Leonard and then Wembanyama.
He’d also say championships never were the point of pounding the rock, anyway. Two summers ago, after he’d won a gold medal as head coach of Team USA in the Olympics, after he’d broken the NBA record for coaching victories, and after he finally agreed to be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, he repeated something he’d mentioned often over the years.
Obsessing about winning, he said, is absurd.
“It’s illusory,” Popovich said. “It doesn’t really exist.”
To Popovich, the result never was what mattered. So when he spent the last six months trying like hell to get back to the sideline, to get back to those cross-country flights, to get back to those team dinners, to get back to being the conscience and defining voice of one of the greatest franchises in NBA history?
He did not fail to return.
He’d been there all along.
And he always will be.
By Mike Finger, Columnist, via San Antonio Express-News