“If you want to play, make me play you. Make it so that I’m an idiot if I don’t have you on the court.” – Gregg Popovich
Inspirational Gregg Popovich Quotes
- “The older you get, the more you try to appreciate what you’ve accomplished.”
2. “The measure of who we are is how we react to something that doesn’t go our way.”
3. “Play the right way’ means play unselfishly, respect each other’s achievements, play hard, fulfill your role.”
4. “Basketball is a pretty simple game. What wins is consistency and competitiveness.”
5. “When you lose a game, you’re not surprised, you’re disappointed. I don’t understand the word surprise, that sort of disses the French team, so to speak, as if we were supposed to beat them by 30 or something.”
6. “We responded well from a real tough loss last night. That’s what a coach always looks for. It was great to come out angry enough to try to put last night out of their heads. We played well most of the night, but a lot of the fuel for that came from last night.”
7. “We believe in people executing their role and caring about the team more than anything individually.”
8. “You want to give everyone a run, so they get in shape.”
9. “I’m not too interested in talking about the past. It doesn’t do us any good whatsoever.”
11. “I’m pleased that they performed as well as they did while we’ve been in Miami and that’s about as far as it goes. Now, we’ve got to go home and play as well or better.”
12. “People get a little bit more cautious. People want to take care of the ball, value possessions a little bit more.”
13. “We would have two less championships here if it was not for Manu Ginobili. In my eyes, he’s the stud of the world.”
Famous Gregg Popovich Quotes
14. “No one is bigger than the team. If you can’t do things our way, you’re not getting time here, and we don’t care who you are.”
15. “I can’t make every decision for you. I don’t have 14 timeouts. You guys got to get together and talk.”
16. “People get a little bit more cautious. People want to take care of the ball, value possessions a little bit more.”
17. “If you want to play, make me play you. Make it so that I’m an idiot if I don’t have you on the court.”
18. “For those who sent me something, I just want them to know, it immediately went in the trash.”
19. “There were a lot of good contributions by a lot of people. It worked out well for us. We had pretty good overall defense and good offense, but a little sloppy. The good defense carried us through.”
20. “You have to make shots to win basketball games and we didn’t do that. You also have to get back on defense, so it was a double-whammy.”
21. “I asked them if it wasn’t too much trouble, if I wasn’t being too pushy, if they could execute what we were trying to do. And if it didn’t make them too angry, if they also wanted to play some defense on the other end, that would be great.”
22. “If you lose, you were less aggressive, and you didn’t have the effort; that’s all baloney. That’s psycho-babble. You don’t think Patty Mills and those guys played hard? You don’t think Timmy tried to play hard? That’s silly. They played better than we did. It’s got nothing to do with effort.”
Gregg Popovich, an American professional basketball coach and executive (born January 28, 1949), serves as the NBA’s president and head coach of the San Antonio Spurs.
Popovich joined the Spurs organization in 1994 and served as the team’s president of basketball operations and general manager before becoming their coach in 1996.
In the NBA and all other major sports leagues in the US, Popovich has the longest active coaching career. Frequently referred to as “Coach Pop,” Popovich is regarded as one of the best coaches in NBA history and has the most victories of any coach in league history.
Popovich surpassed Phil Jackson for the most consecutive winning seasons in NBA history by guiding the Spurs to a winning record in his first 22 full seasons as head coach.
The Spurs have had a winning record against every other NBA team during his tenure, which was a major factor in the team’s continued success in the 1990s, 2000s, and the majority of the 2010s.
Popovich is one of only five coaches in NBA history to have won five titles, having steered the Spurs to all five of their championships.
At the 2020 Summer Olympics, he served as the team’s head coach and guided the Americans to a gold medal. Popovich’s induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame was announced for 2023.