It’s an emotional couple of days for San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich. Yesterday, in an extremely tragic turn of events, beloved sideline reporter and friend of Popovich’s Craig Sager passed away from leukemia that he bravely battled for years. Now, Tim Duncan – who was coached by Popovich for 20 years – will have his jersey retired. Obviously, Duncan’s jersey retirement doesn’t compare to the passing of Sager, but it will be enough to make Popovich emotional, he tells Marc Stein of The Undefeated:
“When you’ve been with somebody for 20 years, it’s pretty emotional. It’s already been that way, so hopefully there is none of that left in there. Hopefully, I will be good. Hopefully, I won’t be tearing up,” Popovich said.
Since announcing his retirement, Duncan has remained around the team, in a sort of untitled coaching/training role. Manu Ginobili jokes that Duncan can come back to the court any time:
“If he ever wants to be back, we will bring (the jersey) down and he can wear it again,” Ginobili said.
Ginobili misses having Duncan on the roster:
Spurs guard Manu Ginobili said Duncan’s jersey retirement will be “emotional” for him.
“A lot of flashbacks will come back to me because of what we went through. Most of his games were with me,” Ginobili said.
