Gregg Popovich's Coaching Tree Could Be The Greatest Ever

A great coaching tree tends to be a sign of a great coach, and Popovich certainly was one. He won five titles with the Spurs and walked away as the winningest coach in NBA history with 1,422 wins in the regular season. Those who have worked under him haven't been as successful as he was, but they have done well in their own right. Let's take a deeper look at some of the more successful ones.

Mike Budenholzer

Mike Budenholzer worked alongside Popovich for nearly two decades. Budenholzer joined the Spurs in 1994 as a video coordinator and was then made an assistant coach under Popovich in 1996. He would be with the Spurs until 2013, when he chose to take the head coaching job with the Atlanta Hawks.

Budenholzer won Coach of the Year with the Hawks in 2015 and would later win the award again in 2019 with the Milwaukee Bucks. Three years later, in 2021, he led the Bucks to the NBA championship. Budenholzer hasn't had much success since then, but he is still one of the most successful head coaches of the last decade or so.

Becky Hammon

Becky Hammon joined Popovich's staff in 2014 as an assistant coach. She was just the second-ever female to coach in the NBA and managed to make quite an impression on Popovich.

Hammon would go on to become the first female ever to be a finalist for a head coaching job in the NBA in 2021, but she ultimately didn't get the opportunity. So, she headed off to the WNBA later that year to become the head coach of the Las Vegas Aces.

Hammon led the Aces to back-to-back titles in 2022 and 2023. She was named Coach of the Year in 2022 and has quickly established herself as one of the best in the business.

Ime Udoka

Ime Udoka is among the handful who have had the privilege of playing and coaching under Popovich. He played for the Spurs from 2007 to 2009 and was later an assistant from 2012 to 2019.

Udoka got his first head coaching opportunity with the Boston Celtics in 2021 and took the team to the NBA Finals in his very first season. A violation of team guidelines in the offseason afterward would see him lose his job, but it didn't take him too long to get another opportunity.

Udoka became the head coach of the Houston Rockets in 2023 and helped turn things around. The Rockets won 52 games this season to finish as the second seed in the West and are on the cusp of pulling off an incredible comeback from a 3-1 deficit against the Golden State Warriors.

Mike Brown

Popovich hired Mike Brown as an assistant coach in 2000 and worked alongside him until 2003. After leaving the Spurs, Brown briefly worked as an associate head coach for the Indiana Pacers, and then got his first head coaching job with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2005.

Brown led the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals in 2007 and was named Coach of the Year in 2009. He'd win the award again in 2023 with the Sacramento Kings for helping end their 16-year playoff drought.

As for the rest, well, Brett Brown helped the Philadelphia 76ers get out of a dark period in the mid-2010s and make three straight playoff apperances. James Borrego, meanwhile, led the Charlotte Hornets to a winning record in the 2021-22 season. That's the Hornets' only non-losing season in their last nine campaigns.

Jacque Vaughn was another like Udoka to play and coach under Popovich, but hasn't been quite as successful. He led the Brooklyn Nets to the playoffs in 2022-23 after Steve Nash had been fired, but hasn't done much else of note.

Unlike many of these coaches on the tree, P.J. Carlesimo had already been a head coach in the NBA before joining Popovich's staff in 2002. He made the playoffs four times in total as a head coach but never won a series.

While Carlesimo at least made the playoffs, Jim Boylen failed to do that in his two seasons with the Chicago Bulls. Will Hardy has gone one better (or worse) by not making the playoffs in his first three seasons with the Utah Jazz, but that's down to the team being in rebuild mode. Time will tell if Hardy is a great head coach or not.

While all these individuals at least got an opportunity as a full-time head coach, the same can't be said about Joe Prunty. Prunty has only been an assistant or interim head coach in his nearly 20-year career. He did get one extended run as the interim, in which he led the Bucks to the playoffs but lost in the first round.

Like Prunty, Ettore Messina has also never been a full-time head coach in the NBA. He has had plenty of success overseas (4x EuroLeague winner), though, and is currently with Olimpia Milano in Italy.

Last but not least on the coaching front, we get to Mitch Johnson, who is replacing Popovich on the Spurs. Johnson led the team to a 31-45 record in 2024-25 after Popovich had to step aside, and it will be interesting to see what he goes on to achieve.

To go with all these head coaches, Nets GM Sean Marks also played and worked under Popovich. As stated earlier, his fingerprints are all over the NBA.