Stanford alum Mitch Johnson coaches San Antonio Spurs to the NBA Finals
On Saturday, the San Antonio Spurs defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder 111-103 on the road behind 22 points, seven rebounds, one steal, and one block from Victor Wembanyama. The head coach of the Spurs is Stanford alum Mitch Johnson, who played at Stanford from 2005-09 and was an assistant coach under the legendary Gregg Popovich starting in 2019 before eventually taking over the head coaching duties permanently in May 2025 after previously serving as the interim head coach.
During his four years on The Farm, Johnson averaged 5.3 points, 3.0 rebounds, 4.1 assists, and 0.9 steals per game, graduating with a degree in sociology. As an upperclassman, Johnson was the starting point guard for the Cardinal. As a junior, he averaged 6.7 points, 4.3 rebounds, 0.8 steals, and a Pac-10 leading 5.2 assists per game. As a senior, he averaged 6.6 points. 2.5 rebounds, 4.5 assists, and 1.2 steals per game.
The Cardinal made the NCAA tournament in 2007 during Johnson’s sophomore year and in 2008 during his junior year. In the 2008 season, the Cardinal reached the Sweet Sixteen, defeating Cornell 77-53 in the first round and Marquette 82-81 in overtime before falling to Texas 82-62. Stanford finished 10th in the AP Top 25 Poll. In the win over Marquette, Johnson had nine points while dishing out a whopping 16 assists.
The high basketball IQ that Johnson played with on The Farm has translated well into his coaching career as he rapidly ascended the ranks. In just his second season at the helm (first full season), Johnson has successfully guided the Spurs to the NBA Finals, where they will face the New York Knicks.
The Spurs did not make the playoffs last season, making their run to the NBA Finals all the more amazing. That’s something that not a lot of teams have done over the course of NBA history. Especially being as young as they are.
“You know, as a I said earlier, experience a lot of times is used in the form of a best used or the lack thereof when you need it the most,” Johnson said of what his team accomplished being so young. “And people don’t talk about as much the habits, the character, the togetherness, the competitive response. The things we talk about in these media sessions every single day. And this team has now been pretty damn consistent for a long time. For over a hundred games for the most part. And so, I’ll take those things with the experience that we’ve gone through when you want to look back in terms how we started the year, how we go to the cup on the road vs. Denver and LA. What we did in the cup. Playing these guys around Christmastime a few times. Expectations. We’ve played in three playoff series without Victor, without Fox multiple games, I don’t know who has as much experience as we do this year in the season of 2025-2026.”
Obviously, the combination of Victor Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox has played a major role in that happening as the Spurs drafted Wembanyama with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft and acquired Fox in a trade with the Sacramento Kings before the trade deadline in 2025. Still, it’s impressive that in just one full season together, Wembanyama and Fox have formed a tandem that reached the NBA Finals.
“Yeah, he has such a vision in my opinion of who he wants to be as a person and as a player,” Johnson said of Wembanyama. “And the commitment and investment that he puts into that vision is nothing like I’ve ever seen before. And I think we’ve seen a few moments where his emotions probably in my opinion, again, meet all the things that he’s putting into for these achievements and accomplishments and milestones and goals of his. In terms of championing his cause and his journey, I thought in the first half, he floated a little too much at times.
“And we needed him to be demonstrative, we needed him to play with strength. We needed him to bring his will more than his talent and it’s hard for these young guys who have never been in this spot. So there is the experience thing and I understand that they’re learning on the fly what it takes, but I think the second half we doubled down and invested on leaning into willing our plays to execution and to completion and not our talent. And when we did that appropriately we still had enough talent when needed to make the appropriate plays.”
During the regular season, the Spurs went 62-20, finishing with the second best record in the NBA behind the Thunder, who went 64-18. The Spurs ranked 3rd in the NBA in points per game at 119.8, 9th in assists per game with 28.1, 2nd in rebounds per game with 47.0, and 4th in turnovers per game at just 13.5. Any team that facilitates, rebounds, and takes good care of the basketball is a well-coached team. Those are almost always the three things you look for in terms of evaluating quality coaching.
While he didn’t have a playing career in the NBA, at just 39 years of age, Mitch Johnson has more than made up for it with his coaching. He’s become one of the brightest and best coaches in the league while also overseeing one of the most impressive one year turnarounds in league history. It’ll be fun to see if he can cap off this impressive run with an NBA championship against a New York Knicks franchise that hasn’t been to the NBA Finals since 1999. That year, it was the Spurs who won the championship, defeating the Knicks in five games. I’m sure Johnson would be happy with the same result 27 years later.
“Yeah, I mean the biggest play of the game might have been Luke Kornet’s block,” Johnson said. “So, when you start peeling back the layers of how many minutes this guy or what the box score did, obviously we had a lot of guys step up and make shots tonight, which we needed with the variety of people who had double digit points, but it was a complete team effort and we had huge huge moments. Keldon Johnson made two monster threes. The rebounding was big. The first half, we were giving away too many extra opportunities on the glass when we actually did a decent job defensively. And, it’s been the same thing all year. It’s different people’s nights and different people’s moments at different times and they’ve all embraced that.”
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