Why the Next NBA Coach or GM Will Probably Be a San Antonio Spur

The revolving door that leads to the first seat on NBA benches keeps turning.

Dave Joerger exits in Memphis, and soon there will be a line of potential replacements waiting to enter for an interview with Grizzlies general manager Chris Wallace.

Be shocked if some of them don’t currently work for Gregg Popovich.

The Kings already have sought permission to speak with Spurs assistants Ettore Messina and James Borrego about their coaching vacancy. Messina, Popovich’s Italian-born lead assistant and a legend in European coaching circles, was believed to be No. 2 on the Lakers’ coaching list if Warriors assistant Luke Walton had not agreed to take the job. He is on the hot list of candidates for nearly every job that opens.

Borrego already has put in time as a head coach, an interim stretch after Vaughn, another Popovich assistant, was dismissed by the Magic last season.

Now, with additional vacancies in Houston and Indiana, it will be a surprise if Ime Udoka, the third of Popovich’s bench assistants, does not draw some interest, as well.

The NBA’s coaching carousel churns faster these days because instant gratification infects every aspect of American life. In his press conference announcing Vogel’s dismissal, Pacers president Larry Bird suggested a coach’s ability to retain the attention of his players has a shelf life of three years.

It is the sort of institutional impatience Popovich decries. He has been in complete command of his team from the moment he used his authority as Spurs GM to fire Bob Hill and take over on the bench himself. He understands no other way and lauds the patience the Spurs ownership group, then led by Peter Holt, showed him when his second full season on the bench got off to a slow start.

The Spurs won their first championship in that truncated 1998-99 season that began with five losses in the first nine games, and his players have never tuned him out.

“I think I’ve just been fortunate that the kind of players I’ve had seem to want to listen for whatever reason,” he said. “They’re people who are pretty selfless, in the sense they just want to do things to the best of their ability, and we just appeal to that.

“Winning has something to do with it, too. We’ve had good players and we’ve won, so they might be listening or they might not be. They might be winning for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with me. So I hang around.”

But Popovich denounces the lack of institutional patience that leads to the firing of so many coaches, including some who came up through his program, even as they create opportunity after opportunity for others on his staff.

Since 2003, seven Popovich assistant coaches have gone on to become NBA head coaches, including active head coaches Mike Budenholzer (Atlanta), Brett Brown (Philadelphia), Quin Snyder (Utah) and Earl Watson (Phoenix). (Snyder and Watson served as coaches of the Spurs’ D-League team in Austin.) Popovich assistants P.J. Carlesimo (Seattle-Oklahoma City), Jacque Vaughn (Orlando) and Mike Brown (Cleveland and Lakers) moved on to …

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