How a Culture of Character Fueled the Spurs’ Success under Gregg Popovich
A philosophy of acquiring players with character helped build a dynasty for Head Coach Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs
Looking at Gregg Popovich’s hall of fame career and sustained run of excellence as the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs, most casual observers might attribute the wins and championships over the past two decades to players such as Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili. While those three (or four, if you count David Robinson) hall of fame players undoubtedly played huge roles in the Spurs’ success, it was a team culture built on character, and crafted by head coach Gregg Popovich, that served as the foundation for one of the greatest runs of winning in recent NBA and pro sports memory.
In a FIBA basketball coaches clinic from March 2016, Gregg Popovich discussed his team building philosophy and why he built his Spurs’ rosters with players of character.
Character Allows Popovich to Build an Unselfish Team
The foundation for any Gregg Popovich coached team begins with character and the character of the people on the team.
The fiber of your team is the beginning of everything that you do. We talk about ‘we want players who have gotten over themselves’. If you’ve gotten over yourself, you know it’s not about you. It’s about what we do as a group
Players that understand the concept of ‘We before Me’ are more giving of themselves to the team. When teams are filled with people that are more concerned with achieving team success over any individual success, a team-first attitude is created in everything the team does.
I often look at teams that are just loaded with talent. All the players are angry because they don’t have enough minutes….Well, it’s you’re fault for putting that group together. Get rid of them. And start at the basic bottom line with character, and obviously they have a certain level of ability. You have to have a certain level of talent before you do the character thing.
Teams with players that don’t mind giving up their own individual accomplishments for that of the team means that coaches don’t have to worry as much about players complaining about individual statistics and accomplishments. It makes it easier for leaders to obtain buy-in from all team members, and makes it easier to get newly acquired players to buy-in to the team concept since the team-first mentality is so prevalent among existing team members.
Character Allows Popovich to Enjoy Coaching the Team
Building a team of players with character allows Popovich to create a welcoming and exciting environment for himself and his staff to come to work in everyday. On the surface, this can sound selfish. But Popovich knows he doesn’t want to put up with players on his team that would make his role as head coach more difficult than it already is in the hyper-competitive world of the NBA. But any leader that has dealt with having to manage problematic personalities on their team that ended up making their jobs more difficult would wholeheartedly agree with Popovich’s thinking here, right?
The other part of it is you want to enjoy yourself. The seasons are long. There are lots of different situations you’re in…If you’re a grown man or woman, do you want to spend your day with jerks? You want to hate yourself going to practice because you have to put up with this idiot? To hell with them, you don’t want to do that.
Being a professional sports coach is a difficult job without having to deal with personalities that create friction and trouble. Eliminating that toxic talent from the team allows Popovich to focus on winning games and improving his players, as opposed to worrying about the behavior of jerks.
Character Allows the Spurs to Handle Talented, yet Difficult Players
The nature of professional sports is that not every player will possess or align the level of character a leader desires when building their team. For some teams, these situations of acquiring talented yet difficult players can potentially result in the challenging of the standards set forth by coaches or leaders on the team, and end up destroying any built up team culture if these type of situations are not handled quickly and directly.
Professional sports coaches understand this reality and can face this challenge at any point during the year when team builders give into the temptation of acquiring a difficult-to-handle, but potentially ultra-talented player to the team. Popovich has proven that the best way to handle these situations is to build a strong locker room filled with players of character to be able to handle any personalities that are not in exact alignment with the culture and character of the team.
When you amass enough character on your team, you can probably handle someone who is a little off the mark in one way shape or form, because he follows the example. So if you have Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobli, when you’ve been with someone….if you’re program starts with people like that, everyone else can fit in because they follow the example. It’s very hard for someone to be too much of a jerk when they are around a bunch of good people. They sort of blend in. So you can handle that one person, because he or she has a particular talent you can use on your team.
But it is not easy. You have to follow through. You have to be true to your principles. That person that you think is going to be good or that has potential, is going to get you fired. Potential is potential and it doesn’t always happen. So you have to make those kind of decisions to determine what type of team you want to have.
People all have a basic need to fit in within the group, and having a strong core of players that understand, represent, and uphold a culture of character can directly influence ‘off the mark’ players to follow the examples being set by team leaders and help make them conform to the standards of the team.
Character Players Motivate Themselves
The NBA season is a long grind for everyone involved. A focus on acquiring players of character means that Popovich is able to build a roster full of players that don’t need to be motivated every random Tuesday night in Charlotte during a long regular season schedule. Building a team of character allows coaches to prevent the common problem of having to motivate players when they get bored during the long days of the NBA season.
You did your job already if you have people with character who understand…It’s a lot of games….[As a coach, a great way to motivate players] is to depend on their character because you know who they are, they understand that all the games are important for how you’re seeded for playoffs and that kind of thing.
Players with character understand the importance of competing every night, and giving their best effort regardless of the circumstances, which allows Popovich and his coaching staff to focus their energy on other impactful areas to help and improve the team.
Character Allows for Accountability of Powerful Personalities
Popovich is known as an NBA coach that coaches his players hard. His coaching style holds everyone on the team - from future Hall of Famers to bench players - to the same high standards of performance. Accountability to those standards have set the foundation for much of the Spurs’ success, helped the organization avoid complacency during two decades championship-level play, and also allowed for direct and honest communication with the players.
"I think you have to have accountability," Popovich said. "For us, the thing that works best is total, brutal, between-the-eyes honesty. I never try to trick a player or manipulate them, tell them something that I'm going to have to change next week.”
This brutal honesty goes for anyone that puts on the Spurs uniform, even for all-time greats such as Tim Duncan.
If it's Tim Duncan and it's a timeout and I don't think he's doing what he should be doing, I'll ask him, "Are you gonna rebound tonight? Are you gonna rebound at all? Or are you just gonna walk up and down and then we're gonna go to dinner? What are we gonna do?" And he'll listen and then he'll walk back out on the court and say, "Hey Pop, thanks for the motivation." Because he's wise ass.
But I think being honest with people is great. Somebody's doing well — you tell them they did well….You need to have the same standards for everyone. You can treat people differently because each one is different, but they all have to march to the same drummer, to the same standards.
Players that possess character are able to handle the type of criticism, hard coaching, and honest feedback that is a cornerstone of Popovich’s coaching style. When coaching pro athletes, the ability to be honest with the most powerful personalities on the team, as well as hold them to the same high standards as everyone else on the team, is what allows Popovich to be more upfront with the team as a whole, and in turn help push them to reach their potential as players, and perform at their highest level as a basketball team.
Gregg Popovich’s upcoming enshrinement in the Basketball hall of fame is a great reminder that his over two decade run as the leader of one of the winningest NBA franchises started with his ability to establish a team built on a culture of character.
Check out the Clinic Speech below, and some of the above quotes that started at the 2:00 mark.
