The NBA was in a transitional state when Gregg Popovich was named general manager of the San Antonio Spurs before the 1994–95 season, a transaction that was big news only in Alamo City. The holy triumvirate upon which the NBA had built its brand over the past decade was gone: Michael Jordan to minor league baseball, Larry Bird to the Celtics’ front office, Magic Johnson to a kind of purgatory owing to his HIV-positive condition. With those exits (Jordan returned for five complete seasons, as we all know, and Magic had a comeback for a minute) went much of the foundational underpinning of the league, the dependable Bulls-Celtics-Lakers bulwarks that had won 11 NBA championships over the previous 15 seasons and whose players, coaches and management had come to define NBA excellence.
It’s unlikely that anyone was nominating the Popovich-led Spurs to head the New Elite, if there was to be one. San Antonio did have one of the biggest stars in the league in David “The Admiral” Robinson, then entering his sixth season. But the Spurs, born from the rubble of the old ABA—they began their pro hoops life in 1967 as the Dallas Chaparrals before moving 275 miles south and getting rechristened as the San Antonio Spurs in 1973—were known mostly for two things: the shoot-first-last-and-often chillness of George “Iceman” Gervin, a perfect avatar for the wide-open ABA, and a penchant for postseason failure. In the 27 seasons before Popovich took the job, neither the Chaps nor the Spurs had ever made a championship final and the franchise had competed for the conference title only three times.
