Photo: San Antonio Express-News
Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich (left) talks to former Spurs player Avery Johnson during an open game on Sunday, October 6, 2013 at the AT&T Center.
The story of the Spurs’ exclusive gathering of players on a bus that circled the 1999 season has passed into the San Antonio tradition.
But the even smaller summit held at Gregg Popovich’s house the night before remained a secret for more than two decades.
On March 1, 1999, Popovich led a struggling 6-8 team during a season shortened by a lockout. After installing himself as head coach the previous season, he was in danger of being fired.
At ExpressNews.com: The Spirit of ’99: An Oral History of the Spurs’ First NBA Championship
As ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan tells a new story, Popovich invited stars David Robinson and Avery Johnson to his home. Johnson recalled that Robinson showed up eating Popeyes fried chicken and neither of them knew the purpose of the meeting.
“Boys, we have to win this game in Houston. If we don’t, there could be a change of coach,” Popovich told them.
Doc Rivers, one of the team’s announcers at the time, was rumored to be waiting in the wings to take over.
“Pop said to me, ‘You don’t have to look at the bench. Just do what you think makes sense and during downtime we will talk about it,'” Johnson said. “It was very humble. There was no dictatorship. Not ‘in my own way or on the highway.'”
The three men had a sincere relationship and kept the meeting confidential. Several Spurs players, including Sean Elliott and Steve Kerr, had never heard the story until Johnson shared it with MacMullan.
The next day, before a road game against Houston, Johnson asked everyone but the players to leave the team bus. He told his teammates that his coach would probably lose his job if they didn’t win the game.
San Antonio won, 99-82, and lost just five games the rest of the regular season. They finished with the best record in the NBA, 37-13, and broke into the first championship in the franchise.
