On February 28, Greg Popovich celebrated his 73rd birthday, but today’s celebration could add the missing cherry.

The wait was long. Since adding 1,334 wins (on Feb. 25 against the Wizards), the San Antonio Spurs have lost four straight games (Miami Heat, Memphis Grizzlies, Sacramento Kings and Charlotte Hornets); However, last Monday, March 7, by defeating the Los Angeles Lakers, 117-110, coach equaled the legendary mark of Don Nelson by scoring 1,335 NBA wins. Today this figure is already part of history, because with the victory over Utah Jazz104-102, at the AT&T Center, the five-time NBA champion added 1,336 wins to lead the list of coaches who have won the most games in the league.

Nearly a month ago, on February 4, Bob also became the first head coach in the NBA to reach 1,500 career wins, after the regular season and play-off games, when the Spurs beat the Houston Rockets 131-106.

Throughout his career as a coach, Bob has left behind coaches such as Lenny Wilkins (1,332 wins), whom he overtook on February 17; Jerry Sloan (1221) or Pat Riley (1210), among others. For something the NBA considered it to be on its list of the 15 best coaches in league history, a fact that doesn’t seem very relevant to the three-time Coach of the Year.

“Winning another ring? I don’t know, but it’s not a priority in my life either. I’d be happier if I knew that my players would contribute to the betterment of society, that they had good families and that they took care of the people around them,” said the historic coach, who enlisted in the United States Army, A few days ago in 1966 and graduated in Soviet Studies in 1970.

Popovic and Nelson’s relationship goes back to their time in Golden State Warriorswhen the current state manager of Texas was Nelson’s assistant in 1994.

Pope’s tenure as head coach began in the 1996-1997 season with Tottenham. Before he worked as an assistant in the same franchise, from the 88-98 campaign to 91-92. Later, from 92-93 to 93-94, he was also an assistant at Warriros with the aforementioned Nelson.

In his first year in San Antonio he won 17 games and lost 47, while his most successful campaign in terms of wins was 2015-16 where he won 67 games and lost 15 games with an effectiveness rate of 81.7%. It is worth noting that out of the 25 seasons in which he coached Tottenham, he qualified for the qualifiers only in two seasons, 2019-20 and 2020-21.

With Spurs looking to get into play in the second half of this season, currently 12th in the West (26-41), Bob will put his winning number in a place perhaps unreachable for decades by the Spurs elite. NBA coaches.