A few years back Gregg Popovich used to joke that when Tim Duncan decided to stroll off into the sunset he was going to do the same — he joked he looked brilliant while coaching Duncan.
However, at the Finals this year Popovich hinted more than once that he was having too much fun and was not yet ready to walk away.
That became evident Wednesday when the Spurs announced a multi-year agreement to keep Popovich as coach, the team announced. The two-sentence press release was something Popovich himself might have written.
No details were released and coach salaries are not made public, but Popovich is believed to make $6 million a season. He also has player personnel power, something shared with GM R.C. Buford. It was rumored this would be a 4-5 year extension, but that is only rumor.
What this really says is that Popovich wants to be in place to help the Spurs transition from the Duncan/Tony Parker/Manu Ginobili era to the Kawhi Leonard era. (Parker could be part of that transition, he is just 32 years old.)
But that is then, next season the Spurs are bringing all the key pieces back from the team that just won the NBA title (plus have a mid-level exception to add more talent). They are the team to beat and nobody can get as much out of them as Popovich, the best coach in the game today and one of the greats to ever coach the game.