SAN ANTONIO — Spurs' Gregg Popovich reached a historic moment in his NBA career and you can be a part of it.
The San Antonio Spurs announced the “1,336 Coach Pop NFT Collection” – a special set of 1,336 exclusive non-fungible tokens that honor Spurs head coach Popovich’s 1,336 career wins, which now stand as the most of any coach in NBA history.
Featuring digital recreations of Popovich’s famous hand-drawn play cards that helped the Spurs win five NBA Championships, each one of the minted NFTs will be available March 14th on OpenSea at Spurs.com/NFT with 100% of all proceeds going to the San Antonio Food Bank.
Popovich reached 1,336 wins in his career to become the winningest head coach in NBA history with a 104-102 win over Utah, Friday night.
Coach Pop now has the most regular season victories in league annals after passing Don Nelson (1,335 wins), who had held the record since 2010. After starting his career with the Spurs as an assistant coach from 1988-92, Popovich went to the Golden State Warriors for two seasons as an assistant coach under Nelson – who introduced the San Antonio signal caller to the well-known play cards featured on the NFTs.
Each of the 1,336 animated NFTs feature a random combination of five hand-drawn plays from Popovich along with the five Spurs court designs that have served as the floor for each of his 26 seasons in San Antonio. Iconic Spurs plays drawn up by San Antonio’s leader like “Loop Shields” and “Lock and Lob” are combined with classic courts like the “Spurs Icon” and “Original Spurs Fiesta Logo” with Coach Pop’s signature included on each NFT.
In honor of Popovich’s five titles, the first 5 of 1,336 will stand alone as distinct one-of-one NFTs that will feature a completely unique play and court combination. These special five NFTs will be auctioned off to the highest bidder and will also include the original hard copy of the play card, hand-drawn and autographed by Popovich, along with a unique in-person VIP Spurs experience at a game in San Antonio next season.
First 5 Combinations of Play Cards and Courts:
- Loop Shields x Spurs Icon
- Side Out of Bounds 212 x Throwback Spurs Primary Logo
- 5 Down Strong x Throwback Spurs Wordmark
- Lock and Lob x Fiesta Spurs Icon
- Circle Blu x Original Spurs Fiesta Logo
The remaining 1,331 of 1,336 will go on sale for 0.1 ETH apiece, with each NFT featuring a randomized distribution of play cards and courts that will be minted based on the percentage of Popovich’s wins that came on each of San Antonio’s five home floors that the Silver & Black played on during Coach Pop’s tenure.
Available exclusively on OpenSea, the first and largest marketplace for NFTs, fans can bid or purchase an exclusive piece of basketball history only by using Ethereum. Fans will need to set up an OpenSea account and a crypto wallet, like a MetaMask Wallet, in order to participate. The Spurs partnered with Cultos on minting the collection, all of which after purchase can be traded or resold on the marketplace of the owner’s choosing.
Continuing the Spurs longtime relationship with the San Antonio Food Bank, every penny of the proceeds from the on-sale and future transactions will go straight to the nonprofit for the fight against hunger and feeding hope in the Alamo City and the Southwest Texas community.
The “1,336 Coach Pop NFT Collection” auction will go live on Monday, March 14 at 9 a.m. CT and will be open until Thursday, March 17 at 9 p.m. CT at Spurs.com/NFT, where the remaining NFTs will also go on sale simultaneously.
Twitter: @KENS5, @JeffGSpursKENS5