LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich is stepping down after 29 seasons, the team announced Friday, ending a glittering NBA coaching career that included five championships and a record 1,422 wins.

Popovich, 76, a beloved figure across the sport who was sidelined for most of this regular season after suffering a mild stroke last November, will take on a new role as president of basketball operations, the Spurs said.

“While my love and passion for the game remain, I’ve decided it’s time to step away as head coach,” Popovich said in a statement released by San Antonio.

“I’m forever grateful to the wonderful players, coaches, staff and fans who allowed me to serve them as the Spurs head coach and am excited for the opportunity to continue to support the organization, community and city that are so meaningful to me,” the Hall-of-Famer added.

The Spurs confirmed that Mitch Johnson, who filled in as acting head coach after Popovich’s illness this season, would now take over on a full-time basis.

Popovich joined San Antonio as an assistant coach in 1988 and has spent 37 years in the league as a coach and executive. Apart from two seasons as an assistant coach at the Golden State Warriors, the entirety of Popovich’s career has been spent in San Antonio.

Popovich, who was the longest-tenured head coach in any major sports league in the United States prior to Friday’s announcement, also led the United States to a gold medal at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

“Coach Pop’s extraordinary impact on our family, San Antonio, the Spurs and the game of basketball is profound,” Spurs managing partner Peter J Holt said in a statement. “His accolades and awards don’t do justice to the impact he has had on so many people.

“He is truly one-of-one as a person, leader and coach. Our entire family, alongside fans from across the globe, are grateful for his remarkable 29-year run as the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs.”

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Popovich’s sustained record of success was “incomparable.”

“There are few people in the basketball community as beloved and revered as Coach Pop,” Silver said in a statement. “We thank him for his extraordinary leadership and commitment to our sport.”

Speculation about Popovich’s ability to continue in his role as Spurs head coach has swirled since he suffered a mild stroke in November which left him unable to coach the team for the majority of the season.

That sense of uncertainty was heightened last month after he was reportedly hospitalised following a “medical incident” at a restaurant with what was described as a non-life-threatening injury or illness.

– ‘Generational leader’ –
Popovich had already announced in February that he would play no part in the remainder of the Spurs’ season, saying he planned to concentrate on his health “with the hope that I can return to coaching in the future.”

In a coaching career that spanned five decades, Popovich forged a reputation as one of the sharpest minds in basketball, a man-manager par excellence who mixed compassion for his players with a willingness to speak his mind.

“Players believed Pop cared about them individually before he cared about them as basketball players,” former Spurs player Terry Porter told The Athletic. “It was never just about basketball for Pop. He values family — your kids, your wife — and that helps with the buy-in, the trust.”

Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, one of Popovich’s assistants on the Tokyo gold medal-winning Olympic team, has described the Spurs coach as a “generational leader.”

Popovich was also famous for his blistering critiques on politics and social issues, regularly laying into US lawmakers for their failure to pass tougher gun control laws in the aftermath of mass shootings.

He has consistently been a strident critic of Donald Trump, branding the US President a “pathetic, small and damaged man” shortly ahead of last year’s election.

Typically, Popovich expressed his views unapologetically.

“I’m an individual and I live in this country,” he said in a 2017 interview. “I have the right to say and think what I want… if it helps somebody else think one way or the other about something, great. But the discussion has to take place.”