Gregg Popovich is heartfelt towards his players, funny (if short-tempered) towards the media, and generally a perceptive and thoughtful person. Along with Stan Van Gundy, Steve Kerr and others around the NBA, Popovich has not hesitated to voice his disappointment that Donald Trump was elected president last week.
Gregg Popovich on Donald Trump: ‘There are a lot of fearful people, and for good reason’
Popovich spoke out against Trump’s election for the second time in a week.
Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports
Last Friday, Popovich said “we are Rome” while describing how he was “sick to his stomach” about Trump’s electoral victory. On Thursday, the five-year Air Force veteran expressed further disappointment in the election.
“It’s still a disorienting situation, when you thought you lived in a certain kind of country with certain values that were held in esteem and find out those values aren’t very important to half the country,” Popovich told reporters.
Popovich said he received about 100 emails after he first spoke out against Trump last week. Most of them were positive, but a few angry ones promised to never spend money on the Spurs again.
Popovich spoke out against Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon as his chief strategist, who is an outspoken white nationalist who has publicly expressed racist views in the past.
“I think that’s very troublesome to many of us,” Popovich said. “It would be great if he [Trump] made some statements to all of the groups he disparaged, to bring us all together, and to allay fears, because there are a lot of fearful people, and for good reason. But rather than doing that, he inflamed it even more with that appointment.”
Popovich also answered a question about whether the Holt family, who owns the San Antonio Spurs and was one of Texas’ biggest Trump donors, gave him the “freedom” to express his distaste for Trump.
“No, (the Holts) haven’t given me that freedom,” Popovich said. “I live in America. That’s what has given me that freedom.”
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