2016 NBA All-Star Game News: Gregg Popovich to Coach Western Conference
The Golden State Warriors are chasing the record-setting 72-win season by the Chicago Bulls. They're currently on track of beating that even with the early season absence of their head coach, Steve Kerr. And so even though they own the best record in the league, the San Antonio Spurs still have the best coach.
Gregg Popovich once again has been named by the league as the coach for the West All-Stars in the NBA All-Star Weekend on Wednesday. This privilege will be veteran coach's fourth in a colorful and highly successful career.
He's honored to be part of it once again. "It's a pretty awesome feeling to know that you're going to be in the locker room with some of the best athletes in the world, and it's pretty humbling," Popovich said. The longest tenured active head coach in all of U.S. sports may not be coaching the best team in the league right now, but he's still the best coach in all of basketball.
The opportunity to coach the best players in the Western Conference should have been given to the Warriors' Steve Kerr, but league rules don't allow a coach to handle two straight All-Star games. But in a better rationale, Popovich actually deserves it more than Kerr since the latter has not coached enough games this season, even though all the wins the Warriors got with interim coach Luke Walton on the helm are still credited to Kerr.
This year's NBA All-Star Game will be held outside the United States, which actually is a first. The entire festivities is to be held in Toronto, but it is known to everyone that the game, serving as the highlight of the entire event, will be available to viewers in more than 200 countries in the world and will also be commentated in 40 different languages. This 65th edition will again be televised by TNT.