After struggling a stroke within the fall, Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich is “attacking his rehab with the identical resilience” that he has exhibited for many years on the crew’s bench, crew CEO R.C. Buford informed reporters in Paris on Wednesday, in line with The Athletic’s Joe Vardon.
Whereas Buford isn’t ruling out the likelihood that Popovich will resume his teaching duties for the Spurs later this season, he stated it’s unimaginable to say for positive — or to undertaking a restoration timeline for the longtime head coach, who will flip 76 subsequent Tuesday.
“His enchancment continues to get higher, [but] I don’t know that we’ve any method to decide the clock,” Buford stated. “Predicting what’s to come back is only a operate of the place Pop’s rehab goes.”
Popovich initially stepped away from the Spurs in early November resulting from what was described on the time as a well being challenge. The membership later put out a statement saying that Popovich had suffered a light stroke, and he subsequently issued a statement of his own in December that hinted he deliberate to return to the sidelines for the Spurs if and when his well being allowed.
Within the meantime, performing head coach Mitch Johnson continues to guide the membership and has San Antonio inside hanging distance of a play-in spot at 19-22. Based on Vardon, Johnson described his communication with Popovich as “constant.”
“He’s watching video games, nonetheless as opinionated as he’s ever been, and aggressive, and what you’d assume — giving reward and cussing me out, all on the identical time,” Johnson stated, per Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press. “Pop’s well being has been the precedence because the begin of this and till dot-dot-dot. That’s sort of how we, and I, take the strategy. We wish the perfect for Pop and I need the perfect for this crew and nonetheless I might help is the place I’ll put my vitality.”
Chris Paul additionally stated he stays involved with Popovich, telling the media in Paris that the Spurs coach is in contact with gamers by way of cellphone.
“I’m not even positive if that is public, however he calls,” Paul stated. “He calls after video games and I discuss to him, and he tells me what he sees, and I recognize that greater than something as a result of he doesn’t have to do this. And he does.”
As Vardon writes in a separate story for The Athletic, if Popovich have been in France on the present highway journey, he doubtless would have taken the Spurs out to a complicated Paris restaurant for the kind of “wine-soaked” team dinner he’s known for. As an alternative, it was second-year star Victor Wembanyama who took the lead on that crew dinner on Monday after the membership arrived in his native nation, per Vardon.
“We talked about it — Pop had a schedule right here, and he would have completed one thing like that too,” Wembanyama stated. “Doing that on the primary day was essential for me to welcome [teammates] and to indicate them, as a result of I do know if I went to any of those guys’ nation or metropolis, I might have liked to search out out about about the place they arrive from to study to know them higher as a result of they’re they’re all good human beings. So actually, it’s an actual likelihood to share these moments collectively.”
