Since becoming a professional team back in 1967-68, the San Antonio Spurs franchise has a regular-season record of 2,567 wins with only 1,718 losses. Of course, most of the team's success is thanks to Gregg Popovich, Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.
However, there have been other stellar coaches and superstar players who have played for the Spurs before the aforementioned legends.
For this piece, we take a look at the top four head coaches in Spurs franchise history, starting with a man who was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a coach back in 2002.
4. Larry Brown
Brown coached the Spurs for four seasons from 1989 to 1992. The team made the playoffs twice during that span.
Brown won 153 games with the Spurs during the regular season. That's good for fourth place on the San Antonio all-time wins list. He also has the fifth most postseason wins with seven.
Larry wound up winning an NBA championship as head coach of the Detroit Pistons in 2004. He also led the 2001 Philadelphia 76ers to the Finals.
3. Stan Albeck
Albeck was with the Spurs from 1980 to 1983. San Antonio made the playoffs all three years under Albeck, who racked up the same amount of wins as Brown (153) but way fewer losses since he coached one less season than Brown.
He went 153-93 with the Spurs in the regular season and 13-14 in the playoffs. Albeck has the third-most playoffs wins in franchise history. It is also worth noting that he once led the Spurs to a 53-29 record.
2. Doug Moe
The Spurs won 177 games during the four years Moe was running the show. Doug is second to only Popovich in regular-season victories, which is a pretty good record considering no one can really topple Coach Pop from the top of the team's coaching wins list.
San Antonio made the postseason three times under Moe. The New York native won nine playoff games and lost 13.
The 1977-78 Spurs won 52 games under Moe and had the second-best offense in the league. However, the team saw its magical season end quickly in the playoffs when the Spurs lost to the Washington Bullets in the 1978 Eastern Conference Finals. Yes, San Antonio used to be in the Eastern Conference.
1. Gregg Popovich
Popovich is not only the best Spurs coach ever, but he could go down as the top coach in NBA history. Pop has won five championships with San Antonio — highlighted by 1,272 victories in the regular season and 170 in the playoffs.
Entering the 2019-20 season, Popovich had guided the Spurs to the playoffs an NBA record 22 straight seasons. However, before the season was suspended due to COVID-19, San Antonio was actually on its way to missing the postseason.
The Spurs only had a record of 27-36, which put them in the 12th spot in the Western Conference standings.
Popovich has the ninth-most wins in NBA history. He also has the sixth-best winning percentage at 67.6. It is safe to say the Spurs would not be who they are today without Pop.
The way he was able to connect with Duncan was special and who knows if Timmy becomes the legend he was without the guidance and leadership of Pop.
Popovich signed a three-year extension with the Spurs in April, but he’s also widely known to be taking a year-by-year approach at this stage of his career. Pop is 71 and has been working with the franchise since 1988. He has earned the right to do whatever he wants since he has already established himself as arguably the best to ever do it.
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