Former San Antonio Spurs guard, Devin Brown checks in with Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson on Scoop B Radio. Press Play Below To Listen!
San Antonio Spurs head coach, Gregg Popovich is the longest tenured coach in the NBA.
With strong leadership, Popovich, a five-time NBA champion has guided names like David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Kawhi Leonard.
Names like that have afforded Coach Pop the disinct honor of winning the NBA Coach of the Year award three times.
Having been part of the Spurs organization since 1988, humor and candor has been Popovich’s brand.
Case in point: I once asked Coach Pop who were his role models while growing up, Pop told me that he didn’t idolize celebrities because idols have feet of clay.
“At the top of my head, Thomas Jefferson was a great guy; he was a slave owner,” he told me.
“You can make that similar analogy with a lot of other people who have been idolized. They all have flaws. So I go for people that I know.”
His honestly doesn’t just end with members of the media. That honesty extends to his players, too.
Insert former Spurs player, Devin Brown.
Appearing on the Scoop B Radio Podcast, Brown, an avid golfer told me that he once brought his golf clubs on the team plane for a West Coast swing to Phoenix.
“Pop said: ‘I don’t want to see you bring your clubs to the plane again,'” recounted Brown.
“I remember that happening.”
Uh oh!
According to Brown, the Spurs had a few days off in between their trip to Phoenix to play the Suns before heading to Northern California days later where the Spurs would later face the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings.
“Well we were going to Phoenix and then we had like two or three days off in Oakland,” said Brown.
“We were going to play Golden State, so I was like, you know what? I’m taking my clubs, I’m going to golf up there, maybe at Pebble, and I was getting off the plane and one of the security guards said, ‘why don’t you look towards the middle of the plane at that window, do you see a familiar face?’ and I did, and Pop was looking at me and Pop came and was getting off the plane, he was like, “what do you think you’re doing?” and I said: ‘I apologize, I’ll put them back.’ I put them right back in the back of my truck. I said, ‘oh my goodness,’ whereas opposed to, I played for Byron Scott and we would have days off and Byron’s like, ‘Dev, make sure you bring your clubs, we’ve got two or three days off.’
Pop Strikes again!
Worth noting: Devin Brown thinks the world of his former coach. “Pop is one of those coaches that’s completely straight up and down with you and that’s A to Z,” he said.
“He’s a funny guy and if you don’t understand or if you haven’t been around him, there’s a ton of people that don’t understand, you know, some of the press conferences that he has, but you have to realize that, at the end of the day, where that comes from is, everybody, well a lot of people, can play high school basketball, you’re blessed, you go to the next level. But then after that, when you get to the NBA, you have all these grown men chasing a basketball around, getting paid millions and millions of dollars to do it.”
