DeMar DeRozan revealed that San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich made them watch sensitive videos to motivate the team. Back in 2018, DeRozan teamed up with the Spurs. Throughout that DeRozan said that he learned a lot of things from coach Popovich. The veteran mentioned on Podcast P with Paul George that his former coach was unique in bestowing wisdom upon his team.
DeRozan looked back at the time his team thought coach Popovich was going to show them a film of basketball. To everyone's surprise, the coach showed a video of young kids training to be in the military instead. Apparently, the lesson Popovich was trying to teach his team that his players are living the good life. Having that said, the message was that his team shouldn't be whining or complaining when all they need to do is play basketball while getting paid to do so.
“He always put life in perspective,” DeRozan said. “I remember one time we came in thinking we're about to watch film and basketball and he showed us a whole video of kids in a third world country, like 12 years old, training to be in the army… And he's showing us.”
“He didn't give us a heads up, he just showed us. It go off and he just says something like. Y'all in the NBA. So you take away from that put in perspective. We b****ing and complaining about whatever it is we may be complaining about, but imagine if you had a kid over there and your kid was training for the army. At 12, 13,14 years old. It's real. We're very privileged, so with that, give yourself grace when you think s**t is hard. It ain't that hard in comparison to what a lot of these other countries may be going through.”
The success of Gregg Popovich as Spurs' head coach
Gregg Popovich has served the San Antonio Spurs as the head coach since 1996. Throughout almost three decades of coaching various generations of Spurs players, Popovich proved that he is one of the best coaches ever in NBA history. Within his first three seasons as head coach, ‘Pop' won his first championship in 1999 during the David Robinson era. He then proceeded to win four more titles with the dynasty he built around the trio of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker.
While the ratio of his longevity in the league and his title wins don't seem to be up to par, there's no denying his prowess as a coach. Popovich won three NBA Coach of the Year awards, already solidifying his Hall of Famer status in the early 2000s.
Now in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, Popovich seems to be in his final stretch as the head coach of the Spurs. While it'll be a sad day in San Antonio when the time comes that he retires, at least ‘Pop' can walk away with his head held up high knowing everything he did for the Spurs organization.
Follow Us
Subscribe
