With his commitment to social justice and relentless bashing of President Donald Trump, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich’s popularity among NBA players has soared to unheard of heights.

“It means a lot,” Spurs forward Rudy Gay said of Popovich’s outspokenness. “Pop understands what’s going on.”

But it’s not just Popovich’s politics that has players raving about him. About the same time he started targeting Trump, Popovich also increased his harangues about the need for science, not TV ratings, to be the prevailing issue in the debate over resting players

“It’s like we don’t wear leather helmets in football anymore,” Popovich said. “You have to use the science just like you do the analytics on the court.”

It all made sense, and with it coming from a coach as universally respected as Popovich, it helped accelerate the league’s move toward a saner, safer schedule.

“Absolutely true,” a league source said when asked if Popovich resting players and his sound arguments for doing so helped influence NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s decision to unveil a 2017-18 schedule that reduces the stresses of travel and gives players more recovery time.

“What he did helped create the conversation,” the source said of Popovich. “I would give him credit.”

Make no mistake, the league was already headed in that direction, spending time and money talking to doctors, athletic trainers, sleep experts and others about ways to build rest into its schedule and then gradually taking steps to accomplish that goal.

But it was Popovich’s influential voice that helped speed up the process and make everyone recognize the need for reform.

“Pop fought against it by not dressing players and creating that controversy at times, and then taking the heat and taking fines but always trying to protect the players,” said Spurs center Pau Gasol, a member of the NBA Players Association’s executive committee.

“All those steps,” Gasol added, “had an impact on the result we have today.”

By extending the schedule a full week, the league has:

Eliminated stretches of four games in five days for the first time in the NBA’s 72-year history. Four seasons ago, there were 70 such scenarios, but the league scaled it down from 27 to 20 to zero.

Reduced the number of back-to-backs to 14.4 per teams, down from 16.3 per team, an all-time low for the third consecutive season. A total of 57 back-to-backs were eliminated and no team has more than 16 and no team has fewer than 13.

Protected 22 national TV games by guaranteeing the participating teams will not be involved in back-to-back or five games in seven nights scenarios and no team will have traveled more than 3,500 miles in the seven days before the game.

Add it all up and it means more rest for players and a better product for fans.

“That is important for everybody in the league, especially for me,” joked Spurs guard Manu Ginobili, 40.

Turning serious, Ginobili estimated the proactive measures taken by the league could result in him playing “maybe three, four games more” this season than the 69 he logged last season.

“It’s smart,” Ginobili said. “You want as a league, as a team, as a franchise, as everything, to keep as many franchise players on the court — and, of course, I am not talking about me at this point — and not have them worried about a potential injury or resting or something like that. It’s a great move.”

Popovich played a big part in making it happen.

“Pop’s known for resting guys and taking care of players and making sure their bodies are fresh,” said guard Danny Green, the Spurs union representative. “All of that and the statements he made is kind of what made the league change things.”

Said Gasol, “It’s important for people to vocalize things they believe in for the benefit of the game even if it goes against the system, and Pop does that very well and very unselfishly.”

In typical fashion, Popovich was magnanimous in victory, crediting Silver’s “leadership” as the deciding factor.

“He has bent over backwards to try to figure this stuff out, listening to the players and the coaches and the GMs about what can be done to help the players be even more productive and have longer careers,” Popovich said. “It’s been a great dialogue between the NBA and the coaches and the general managers and the players, so they get nothing but credit for what they tried to do.”

As does Popovich.

torsborn@express-news.net

Twitter: @tom_orsborn