The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio. The Spurs compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Southwest Division of the Western Conference. The team plays its home games at Frost Bank Center in San Antonio.
The Spurs are one of four former American Basketball Association (ABA) teams to remain intact in the NBA after the 1976 ABA–NBA merger,[8][9] one of two former ABA teams to have won an NBA championship (the other being the Denver Nuggets), and the only former ABA team to have won multiple championships.[10] The franchise has won NBA championships in 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2014.[11] As of the 2022–23 season, the Spurs had the highest winning percentage among active NBA franchises.[12] As of May 2017, the Spurs had the best winning percentage of any franchise in the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada over the previous three decades.[13] From 1999–2000 to 2016–17, the Spurs won 50 games each season,[14] setting a record of 18 consecutive 50-win seasons.[15] In the 2018–19 season, the Spurs matched an NBA record for most consecutive playoff appearances with 22.[16] The team's recent success has coincided with the tenure of current head coach Gregg Popovich[11][17] and with the playing careers of Spurs icons David Robinson (1989–2003) and Tim Duncan (1997–2016). In the 2022–23 season, the Spurs celebrated the club's 50th anniversary.
Spurs players are active members of the San Antonio community, and many former Spurs are still active in San Antonio, including David Robinson with the Carver Academy[18] and George Gervin with the George Gervin Youth Center.[19]
The Spurs set several NBA attendance records while playing at the Alamodome including the largest crowd ever for an NBA Finals game in 1999,[20] and the Spurs continue to sell out the smaller Frost Bank Center (formerly SBC Center and AT&T Center) on a regular basis.
Since 2003, the team has been forced into an extended road trip for much of February since the Frost Bank Center hosts the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo during that month. This is informally known as the "Rodeo Road Trip".[21] The Spurs have consistently posted winning road records during this period, including an NBA-record longest single road-trip winning streak (eight games out of nine, achieved in 2003).[22]
When the Spurs have won the NBA title, the team's victory parades have been boat trips on the San Antonio River Walk.[23][24][25]
The San Antonio Spurs started out as the Dallas Chaparrals of the original version of the American Basketball Association (ABA). Coached by player/coach Cliff Hagan, the Dallas Chaparrals were one of 11 teams to take the floor in the inaugural season of the upstart ABA. The Chaps' second season was a bit of a disappointment, as the team finished in fourth place with a mediocre 41–37 record. In the playoffs, the Chaparrals quickly fell to the New Orleans Buccaneers.[26]
The team suffered from poor attendance and general disinterest in Dallas. In fact, during the 1970–71 season, the name "Dallas" was dropped in favor of "Texas" and an attempt was made to make the team a regional one, playing games in Fort Worth, at the Tarrant County Convention Center, as well as Lubbock, at the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum, but this proved a failure and the team returned full-time to Dallas in time for the 1971–72 season, splitting their games at Moody Coliseum and Dallas Convention Center Arena.[27]
While the Chaparrals had been modestly successful on the court, they were sinking financially by their third season. The financial difficulties were largely caused by the ownership group's refusal to invest much money on the team. After missing the playoffs for the first time in their existence in the 1972–73 season, nearly all of the owners wanted out. The team decided to sell the team to a different city, and the Chaparrals had to choose between San Antonio and El Paso.[28] A group of 35 San Antonio businessmen—led by Angelo Drossos, John Schaefer, and Red McCombs—worked out a "lend-lease" deal with the Dallas ownership group. Drossos and his group would lease the team for three years with an option to purchase.
After the deal was signed, the team was renamed the San Antonio Gunslingers.[29] However, before they even played a game, the name was changed to Spurs. The team's primary colors were changed from the red, white, and blue of the Chaparrals to the now-familiar black, silver and white motif of the Spurs, with the branding taking effect for the 1973–74 season.[30] In their first game at HemisFair Arena, the Spurs lost to the San Diego Conquistadors despite attracting a crowd of 6,000 fans. A smothering defense was the team's trademark, as they held opponents to less than 100 points in an ABA-record 49 games. The early Spurs were led by ABA veteran James Silas, and the team grew stronger by acquiring Swen Nater (who would go on to win the Rookie of the Year award) and George Gervin from the Virginia Squires in January. The ABA tried to halt the Gervin deal, claiming it was detrimental to the league; however, a judge ruled in the Spurs' favor and Gervin made his Spurs debut on February 7, 1974. The Spurs finished their inaugural season under that banner with a 45–39 record, good for third place in the Western Division. In the playoffs, the team was defeated by the Indiana Pacers in seven games in the first round. San Antonio embraced the Spurs with open arms; the Spurs drew 6,303 fans per game, surpassing the Chaparrals' entire total attendance in only 18 games. Drossos, Schaefer and McCombs knew a runaway hit when they saw it. After only one year, they exercised their option to tear up the lease agreement, buy the franchise outright and keep the team in San Antonio for good.[31]
The team quickly made themselves at home at HemisFair Arena, playing to increasingly large and raucous crowds. Despite a respectable 17–10 start during the 1974–75 season, Coach Tom Nissalke was fired as the team's ownership become tired of the Spurs' slow playing style. He was replaced by Bob Bass, who said, "It is my belief that you cannot throw a set offense at another professional team for 48 minutes. You've got to let them play some schoolyard basketball." Gervin and Silas took that style to heart, as the Spurs became an exciting fast-break team. The team finished the season with a 51–33 record and finished in second place in the West. In the playoffs, the Spurs fell to the Pacers in six games.[32]
Even though playoff success would elude the team before the merger, the Spurs had suddenly found themselves among the best teams in the ABA. Moreover, their gaudy attendance figures made them very attractive to the NBA, even though San Antonio, then as now, was a medium-sized market. Although San Antonio proper had over 650,000 people at the time (and has since grown to become the seventh-largest city in the United States), the surrounding suburban and rural areas have never been much larger than the city itself.
In June 1976, the ABA–NBA merger took place, moving San Antonio's sole professional sports franchise into a new league. The Spurs, the Denver Nuggets, the Indiana Pacers and the New York Nets joined the NBA for the 1976–77 season. The Spurs and the other three ABA teams added in the merger agreed to pay the owners of two other strong ABA teams that folded instead of joining the NBA. John Y. Brown, Jr., the owner of the Kentucky Colonels, received $3 million, which he used to purchase the NBA's Buffalo Braves and later the Boston Celtics, after selling star guard Louie Dampier to the Spurs. The owners of the Spirits of St. Louis received a portion of all television profits during their NBA tenure, which amounted to approximately one-seventh of the Spurs' television profit every year. This agreement placed particular financial pressure on the Spurs and the other three surviving former ABA teams.[33] In 2014, 38 years after the completion of the merger, the Spirits' owners reached an agreement with the NBA to end the perpetual payments and take a lump sum of $500 million instead.[34]
Although there was some initial skepticism in league circles regarding the potential success and talent levels of the incoming ABA teams, the Spurs would prove worthy of NBA inclusion during the 1976–77 season with a record of 44–38, good for a tie for fourth place overall in the Eastern Conference. This was done in spite of significant handicaps the NBA imposed on the incoming ABA teams, limiting their draft picks and television revenues during their early time in the merged league. They gained a new rival in the form of the