Mitch Johnson critics missing huge factor in coaching hire complaints

Gregg Popovich has one of the most vast and successful coaching trees of any major sport in the country that we've ever seen, so why would we start questioning that tree now? Mitch Johnson has sat next to Coach Pop, learning and growing, for years. When you look around the league at some of the most successful coaches and you'll see the old man's influence everywhere.

Johnson entered the organization through the Austin Spurs in 2016 and became an assistant coach for San Antonio in 2019. That's plenty of time to learn how to succeed on the NBA level when under the tutelage of a master. Popovich wasn't just a fantastic coach, he was a phenomenal teacher. That part of him didn't just serve his players, it served his staff, too.

Mitch Johnson deserves all of Spurs Nation's support

So, Johnson has been with the organization for almost a decade and served as an assistant for five years before stepping into the interim head coaching role last season. Mike Brown has been Coach of the Year twice, and he was only on San Antonio's staff for three seasons. Brown still credits Coach Pop for much of the success he's enjoyed in his career, and he's just one of many.

When you look at the graphic above, it really crystallizes how special the organization and Popovich's guiding hand have been. Ime Udoka is one of the best coaches in the league. He took the Celtics to the NBA Finals in his first year as head coach and brought the Rockets from the lottery team to the second-best record in the Western Conference in his second year with the Houston franchise.

The Utah Jazz just extended Will Hardy—another great young NBA coach. Jacque Vaughn was a finalist for Coach of the Year a few short seasons ago. Mike Budenholzer won COY twice and an NBA championship with the Milwaukee Bucks. I could keep going, but I think you get the point.

Johnson is being unfairly judged for what everyone admits was an abnormal, adversity-inflicted season. Losing Coach Pop like that put Mitch in a terribly difficult situation as he couldn't really run the team as he was the head coach, but everything still fell on his shoulders. When everyone knows you're the substitute, there's an uncertainty in your power. That uncertainty has been removed.

This team was projected to win about the number of games they ended up winning: 34. However, that projection was made before anyone knew what would happen to the winningest coach of all time. It was made before pundits knew that Victor Wembanyama would lose two months due to deep vein thrombosis.

It's fair to assume they would have won many more games than they did had those things not happened the way they did. Johnson had this team playing .500 basketball by the start of January.

They had a top-13 defense and a much-improved offense. When Wembanyama and De'Aaron Fox went down, he was still finding ways to win games, and even had the offense humming with a top-five efficiency rating. Not to mention, Stephon Castle won Rookie of the Year under his watch.

There are several things to like about what Johnson achieved last season and many more reasons to be optimistic about his future as the head coach of the Spurs. Just buckle up and give him a shot. He might just surprise you.