By Mike Finger, Columnist | San Antonio Express-News (SAEN), 2025-05-03 16:01:16
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。
米奇·约翰逊(Mitch Johnson)无需成为一个标志性人物。
他无需出现在T恤衫上，也无需进入名人堂。他无需恳求他的国家变得更好，也无需乞求他的球员给他“一些狠劲”。他无需在每一瓶酒中提供人生教训，也无需培养一棵遍布NBA各个角落的教练树。
约翰逊无法成为格雷格·波波维奇(Gregg Popovich)。但他可以像任何人一样，尽可能地保留波波维奇所建立的一切。
这就是马刺队对这位38岁男人的期望，他们希望他能够接替一位比他年长两倍的传奇人物。他们看到的约翰逊不是下一个波波维奇，甚至不是他的替代者，而是一位懂得如何将成熟体系中最重要部分——信任、连续性和协作——提取出来，并将其转化为未来的教练。
他们本可以聘请任何人。炙手可热的NBA后起之秀、拥有数百万美元合同的大学偶像，以及手指上戴着总冠军戒指的备受尊敬的更衣室领袖们，都会排成长队，一直排到球队训练馆外的过山车顶端，只为有机会执教维克托·文班亚马(Victor Wembanyama)。
但这些潜在的轰动性聘请甚至没有机会推销自己。马刺队确信他们已经有了最适合这份工作的人选，而且在他们看来，这绝不是猜测。
“他配得上这一切，”马刺队首席执行官R.C.布福德(R.C. Buford)在谈到约翰逊时说道。
值得注意的是，这不仅仅是人们在谈论他的前任时所说的话。早在1996年，公众普遍认为波波维奇没有任何资格获得他的新职位，而做出这个决定的高管，也因此遭受了数月甚至数年的强烈不满。
当然，那位高管就是波波维奇本人，他聘请了自己。
相比之下，本周对约翰逊的任何批评都显得微不足道，部分原因在于，几乎没有人会认为他是靠关系才得到这份工作的。
作为斯坦福大学的前大学控球后卫，他的执教生涯始于华盛顿州的青少年球队。马刺队听到了关于他对一位名叫德章泰·穆雷(Dejounte Murray)的西雅图选秀新秀的影响力的好评，于2016年将约翰逊招入麾下，担任G联赛的助理教练。在接下来的八年里，他在球队的各个层面上都留下了深刻的印象，最终坐到了波波维奇的身边。
去年11月，当波波维奇在赛前突发中风时，球队对如何处理此事毫无疑问。没错，长期担任助理教练的布雷特·布朗(Brett Brown)是经验最丰富的选择，他曾担任多年的NBA主教练。如果只是两三场比赛的任务，布朗或许会是首选。
但考虑到波波维奇的健康状况的严重性，这绝不是一份临时工作。马刺队需要的是一个不仅能让波波维奇的椅子保持温暖，而且能够掌控全局，明确表示大方向的目标没有改变的人。在接下来的五个月里，约翰逊正是这样做的。
他并不完美。并非每一个战术都奏效，并非每一次调整的阵容都能配合默契，当文班亚马因血栓倒下时，情况一度变得糟糕，就像波波维奇、迈克尔·马龙(Michael Malone)、菲尔·杰克逊(Phil Jackson)或者瑞德·奥尔巴赫(Red Auerbach)的鬼魂指挥一样。
教练能做的很有限。波波维奇明白这一点，即使这让他很恼火，约翰逊也会明白。
当然，成功并非必然。有一种观点认为，如果一支球队足够幸运地拥有了像文班亚马这样的划时代天才，它就有义务用金钱能够买到的最好的教练来补充这位超级巨星。这可能意味着聘请一位已功成名就、目前赋闲在家、很快就会被抢购一空的资深教练（马龙或泰勒·詹金斯(Taylor Jenkins)），或者尝试挖角一位与马刺队有渊源的现任教练（史蒂夫·科尔(Steve Kerr)，威尔·哈迪(Will Hardy)，奎因·斯奈德(Quin Snyder)或伊梅·乌度卡(Ime Udoka)），或者全力以赴地追求一位不太可能成功的大学国王（杰伊·莱特(Jay Wright)或丹·赫利(Dan Hurley)）。
也许这些选择中的一些是不现实的。也许突然抓住其中一个会是一步天才之举。马刺队没有花时间去追求任何一个。在许多人看来，这是一种冒险。
但马刺队并不这么认为。对他们来说，真正的风险在于，让一个人代替波波维奇执教五个月，眼睁睁地看着他比他们所能想象的更胜任、更专业地完成这项工作，看着他赢得从文班亚马到波波维奇本人等所有人的尊重和认可，然后却决定他们可以做得更好。
这不会是马刺队的方式。也不会是波波维奇的方式。
因此，当约翰逊接手时，他在寻找一个目标吗？
不是成为下一个波波维奇。
而是成为马刺队已经相信他会成为的教练。
San Antonio Spurs interim head coach Mitch Johnson looks on during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Sunday, March 9, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich (left) talks with Assitant coach Mitch Johnson (right) as they watch their team from the stands as they play against the Portland Trailblazers during the 2023 NBA Summer League games in Las Vegas on Sunday, July 9, 2023. Blazers defeated the Spurs, 85-80.
San Antonio Spurs forward Harrison Barnes (40) talks to San Antonio Spurs acting head coach Mitch Johnson during a second quarter timeout in the NBA game against the Brooklyn Nets at Frost Bank Center on Tuesday, March 4, 2025, in San Antonio, Texas. The Spurs defeated the Nets, 127-113.
San Antonio Spurs acting head coach Mitch Johnson, right, speaks with Spurs guard Chris Paul during the second half of their NBA basketball game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Sunday, March 2, 2025, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Darren Abate)
点击查看原文：In following Pop, Mitch Johnson aims to live up to Spurs' belief
In following Pop, Mitch Johnson aims to live up to Spurs’ belief
Mitch Johnson does not need to become an icon.
He does not need to wind up on T-shirts, or in the Hall of Fame. He does not need to implore his country to be better, or beg his players to give him “some nasty.” He does not need to offer life lessons with every bottle of wine, or grow a coaching tree that spreads to every corner of the NBA.
Johnson cannot be Gregg Popovich. But he can preserve as much of what Popovich built as anyone can.
That’s what the Spurs believe about the 38-year-old man they’re asking to follow a legend twice his age. They see in Johnson not the next Popovich, or even a replacement for him, but a coach who knows exactly how to take the most important parts of a proven system — trust and continuity and collaboration — while spinning it into what’s next.
They could have hired anybody. Hot NBA up-and-comers, college icons with multimillion-dollar contracts and respected locker-room leaders with championship rings on their fingers would’ve lined up around the block and to the top of the roller coaster outside the team practice facility for a chance to call plays for Victor Wembanyama.
None of those potential big-splash hires even got the chance to make their pitch. The Spurs were convinced they already had the perfect man for the job, and in their minds they were not just guessing.
“He earned every bit of it,” Spurs CEO R.C. Buford said of Johnson.
This, it should be noted, is more than just about anyone was saying about his predecessor when he got the gig. Back in 1996, the popular public perception was that Popovich had done nothing to merit his new job title, and the executive who made that decision was subjected to months and years of loud, sustained grief.
That executive, of course, was Popovich, who’d hired himself.
Any criticism of Johnson’s selection this week is tame by comparison, partly because it’s all but impossible to believe he had anything handed to him.
A former college point guard at Stanford, he got his coaching start with youth teams in the state of Washington. Hearing rave reviews about his influence on a new Seattle-raised draft pick named Dejounte Murray, the Spurs brought Johnson aboard as a G-League assistant in 2016, and over the next eight years impressed enough on every step of the organizational ladder to make it to the seat next to Popovich.
When Popovich suffered his stroke before a game last November, there was no doubt in the organization about how to proceed. Yes, longtime assistant Brett Brown was the most experienced option, having worked multiple years as an NBA head coach. Had it been a two- or three-game assignment, Brown might have been the choice.
But considering the seriousness of Popovich’s health situation, this was no temp job. The Spurs wanted someone who would not just keep Popovich’s chair warm, but to take control, to make it clear that the big-picture objectives hadn’t changed. And over the next five months, that’s exactly what Johnson did.
He wasn’t perfect. Not every call worked, and not every tinkered lineup clicked, and when Wembanyama went down with a blood clot, things kind of fell apart for a while, just as they would have with Popovich or Michael Malone or Phil Jackson or the ghost of Red Auerbach in command.
A coach can do only so much. Popovich understood that, even when it drove him mad, and Johnson will, too.
Success isn’t guaranteed, of course. There is a school of thought suggesting that if an organization finds itself lucky enough to wind up with a generational talent like Wembanyama, it owes itself to complement that superstar with the best coach money can buy. That could mean hiring an established, out-of-work veteran sure to be snapped up soon (Malone or Taylor Jenkins), or making a run at a current coach with Spurs connections (Steve Kerr, Will Hardy, Quin Snyder or Ime Udoka), or going all-out for a long-shot college king (Jay Wright or Dan Hurley).
Maybe some of those options were unrealistic. Maybe pouncing on one would have been a stroke of genius. The Spurs didn’t take the time to pursue any of them. To many, that looks like a risk.
But the Spurs don’t see it that way. To them, the risk would have been asking a man to step in for Popovich for five months, and watching him do it more competently and more professionally than they could have dreamed, and seeing him command the respect and endorsement of everyone from Wembanyama to Popovich himself, and then deciding they could do better.
That wouldn’t have been the Spurs’ way. It wouldn’t have been Popovich’s, either.
And so as Johnson takes over, and looks for an objective?
It’s not to become the next Popovich.
It’s to be the coach the Spurs already believe he is.
By Mike Finger, Columnist, via San Antonio Express-News