Leftist NBA coach Gregg Popovich, whose San Antonio Spurs have 22 wins and 60 losses in the 2022-2023 season, has been silent on the question of whether he will soon retire. Over the weekend, he managed to leave some fans hoping his exit will come sooner rather than later.
Popovich, 74, launched into a vitriolic rant about gun control during a pregame media availability Sunday, in which he denounced Republican lawmakers and invoked the March massacre of six Christians by a transsexual extremist in a Nashville school.
Dodging inquiries about whether he might retire in the off season, Popovich asked if anyone in the room was carrying a firearm, reported ESPN.
“I just wondered because we have a governor and lieutenant governor and an attorney general that made it easier to have more guns,” said Popovich, allegedly in reference to Texas politicians. “That was a response to our kids getting murdered. I just thought that was a little bit strange decision. It’s just me, though.”
The geriatric coach, who has gone 3-7 in his past 10 games, condemned Republicans in Texas and Tennessee and further denounced the expulsion of Democratic Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson from the Tennessee House.
Popovich intimated that the lawmakers who expelled Jones and Pearson over their disruption of the Democratic process were racists who “deep in their soul want to go back to Jim Crow.”
After smearing those who sought to restore order in the state House as racist, Popovich read and then ridiculed a statement from U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), suggesting her coordination efforts with federal, state, and local officials to assist in Nashville after an LGBT militant shot up a school were futile.
“[Assist] in what? They’re dead,” Popovich yelled. “What are you going to assist with — cleaning up their brains off the wall, wiping the blood off the schoolroom floor? What are you going to assist with?”
Blackburn is presently working to introduce the Securing Aid for Every School Act to the U.S. Senate, which would fund the training and hiring of veterans and former police officers to harden school security and ultimately keep children safe.
Popovich continued, lambasting Governor Bill Lee, who, along with his wife Maria, lost two close friends, Cynthia Peak, 61, and Dr. Katherine Koonce, in the Covenant School shooting.
“And then there’s Governor Lee. I’m sorry to go on and on, but Bill Lee: ‘I’m closely monitoring the tragic situation. Please join us in prayer.’ What are you monitoring? They’re dead! Children — they’re dead. When I pick up my 6- and 11-year-old grandkids at school, when I’m here at home, on the way it goes through my mind that I hope they’re going to be OK.”
The 74-year-old coach from Indiana suggested that Republican efforts to defend Americans’ constitutional rights depended on the “myth” of the Second Amendment.
“You know, it’s just a myth. It’s a joke. It’s just a game they play. I mean, that’s freedom. Is it freedom for kids to go to school and try to socialize and try to learn and be scared to death that they might die that day?” said Popovich.
“But Ted Cruz will fix it because he is going to double the number of cops in the schools. That’s what he wants to do. Well, that’ll create a great environment. Is that freedom? Or is it freedom to have a congressman who can make a postcard with all his family holding rifles, including an AR-15 or whatever. Is that cool? Is that like street cred for a Republican? That’s freedom? That’s more important than protecting kids? I don’t get it.”
This is not the first time that Popovich — who originally figured he would apply his academic background in Soviet studies to a career working for the CIA — has opined on political matters.
TheBlaze previously reported that Popovich endorsed failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke in 2018 because of the way Sen. Ted Cruz’s opponent had made him feel.
In 2019, Popovich called former President Donald Trump “feckless, impotent, and cowardly.”
In 2020, Popovich suggested George Floyd’s death was a “lynching” and claimed the incident made him “embarrassed as a white person.”
In 2021, he likened Italian hero and renowned explorer Christopher Columbus to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, accusing him of committing “a new world genocide,” and further suggested that Texan schools that observed Columbus Day were “backward.”
Gregg Popovich asks a serious question… again.youtu.be
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