Based on his players have spoken about him, San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich seems like a guy players go out of their way to play for. That theory was recently proven to be true.
It has come out that when bigman Boban Marjanovic became a free agent this past summer, he intended on staying with the Spurs. But as we also learned, Popovich talked Marjanovic into leaving San Antonio so he could get a big payday.
Marjanovic, who played for the Spurs for one season after playing in Europe, heeded Popovich’s advice and signed a three-year, $21 million with the Detroit Pistons. And with Pistons playing San Antonio during the preseason, the story of Pop’s advice came out.
“He’s such a good kid, at some point I had to work to get him to understand that $21 million was different than $3 million,” Popovich said. “I said, ‘Get your ass out of here. Go. You’ve got to do it.’ But he felt bad.”
With Marjanovic becoming a cult star during his stint with the Spurs, and the NBA salary cap rising significantly, there were plenty of teams like Detroit willing to pay a big sum of money to the Serbian 7-footer. Unfortunately for Marjanovic, the team he was playing for wasn’t one of those teams.
Looking back on it, Marjanovic now agrees with Pop and seems to be enjoying his nice new large contract.
“My first wish was to stay,” Marjanovic said. “But this is good now. I think I made a good decision.”
Stories like these make it even easier to appreciate the San Antonio head coach. It’s hard to imagine other coaches encouraging their players to go get their big payday and leave the team. No wonder players are willing to take lesser salaries to play for the Spurs.
[FTW/San Antonio Express-News]
