Premiere League legend Thierry Henry pays tribute to Spurs’ Gregg Popovich

The San Antonio Spurs are ushering in a new era of Spurs basketball with the retirement of Gregg Popovich. Earlier this week, the legendary Spurs coach announced his leaving coaching and transitioning to the President of Basketball Operations position. While the news was still fresh, Thierry Henry wanted to pay tribute to the head coach.

The Premiere League legend met Popovich and wanted to show his respect as well as appreciation for the five-time NBA Champion.

Premiere League legend Thierry Henry pays tribute to Spurs’ Gregg Popovich

Thierry Henry, well known as the all-time leading goal scorer in Arsenal history as well as one of the greatest strikers of all-time, has also spent time as a head coach in his career.

Most recently, the Premiere League great coached France’s U23 National Team to the Silver medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics, falling to Spain in the Gold Medal match.

Ahead of the Champions League semifinal matchup between Inter Milan and Barcelona on Tuesday night, Theirry Henry took time out of the pre-match broadcast to speak out his experience with former Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich.

“Yeah, I don’t know if you saw Gregg Popovic stopped [after] 29 years as the coach of the San Antonio Spurs,” Henry said of Popovich on the broadcast. “I got the chance to meet him with Tony Parker when I was going there and I always was well received with RC Buford, who was there also with Coach Pop that he will stay also 29 years. I mean he’s a bit you know like Sir Alex was in our game. He’s gonna go up to be the President of [Basketball] Operation.

“And so I never had the time to thank him because of the discussion I had with him. He gave me a lot of advice to know what it is to be a leader and have the key of the team because I used to have a discussions with him about how he did it when Tim Duncan was the man and then suddenly Tony [Parker] somehow went to a certain level and I was like, ‘how did you deal with Tony, [Manu] Ginobili, and Tim Duncan. And we were talking about that. He was always, always available to speak. He’s just a great guy and like he had a t-shirt the other day so I would say all the very best, ‘El Jefe,’ because that’s how he said, ‘El Jefe.’ Yeah, ‘El Jefe,’ the boss. Much respect yeah from all of us.”

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Gregg Popovich finished his NBA head coaching career with 2,575 career games across the regular season and postseason. Popovich accrued a 1422-869 (.621) regular season record and a 170-114 (.599) playoff record.

Led by Popovich, the Spurs won NBA Championships in 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2014 while finishing just one game short of a sixth NBA Championship in 2013, falling to the Miami Heat in Games 6 and 7 despite holding a 3-2 series lead.

Over his 29-year head coaching history, Popovich won Coach of the Year three times during the 2002-03, 2011-12, and 2013-14 seasons while finishing in the top three an addition three times in the 2010-11, 2015-16, and 2016-17 seasons.