Mavericks’ Rick Carlisle: Spurs’ Gregg Popovich ‘Coach of the Century’
By Mike Dyce
San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich won coach of the years honor and his first round counterpart, Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle, suggested a different award for him.
“Why don’t we just give him Coach of the Century?” Carlisle said, via the Dallas Morning News. “I mean, he’s the greatest. Obviously very well-deserved. They were almost a wire-to-wire top seed in the league. And he’s the best.”
Carlisle hasn’t been shy of praising Popovich before, and most recently did so in December.
“The league is one challenge after another after another. Pop has become a good friend of mine over the years. It’s obvious what he’s accomplished,” Carlisle said, via the Dallas Morning News. “I think everybody in our profession kind of view him as the guy. When you’re some place for 18 years straight, nobody has done that since Jerry Sloan, and Sloan was there for 21 or 22 years, and everybody said that will never be done again. It will all depend on how Pop wants to go. But he’s the best of the best in my opinion. I think he’s the greatest coach ever, mostly because he’s been able to do it with a system. He’s got great players, but he’s done with a system, and he’s adapted their personnel to his system, and he’s done it with so many different moving parts over the years. It’s just been a phenomenal accomplishment.”