What it means when Gregg Popovich speaks

Jeffrey Swinger-USA TODAY Sports A lasting memory from working the Spurs beat these last three years is the mood before a Gregg Popovich scrum, that palpable mix of reverence and angst that fills a room of grownups as they gather around a man who’s about to speak about basketball, for the most part. It sounds absurd to anyone whose mind hasn’t been poisoned by sports or fandom, but in the moment it’s hard not to feed into it yourself, either carefully choosing your words for a potential question or gathering the proper level of decorum for the moment. I’m rarely successfully at either.

In comparison to other markets, the contingent of local media in San Antonio isn’t large, and roughly five…