The San Antonio Spurs are an unlikely success story in the NBA and people often forget about it. The team has been a giant in the NBA for over 25 years but they don’t have the tools everyone else does. The Spurs have one of the smallest markets in the NBA and are a testament to how small-market teams can build toward success and become a marquee attraction.
The fanbase is extremely loyal and in the midst of one of the worst seasons in modern Spurs’ history, has shattered a record even the best teams in the NBA can’t.
For their 50th anniversary celebration, the Spurs hosted the Golden State Warriors in the Alamodome. Even though the Spurs were likely to lose against the Warriors, 68,323 fans packed the stadium and helped the Spurs set a new record for single-game attendance in the NBA.
The NBA's new single-game attendance record.
68,323 at the Alamodome tonight 🙌 pic.twitter.com/bkF4W1tdsT
— NBA (@NBA) January 14, 2023
It definitely helped that Stephen Curry was playing and the fans were guaranteed a show, given the struggles of their current roster, but this was loyalty to the franchise that brought this attendance number. Fans wanted to celebrate a historic night and showed up in droves to do so.
Gregg Popovich Changed The Franchise Forever
Players are often given a lot of credit for changing a team’s history, like LeBron James in Cleveland, Kobe Bryant in LA, and Michael Jordan in Chicago. The Spurs’ have 2 former players with those reputations in Tim Duncan and David Robinson. But the true architect behind the Spurs’ success has always been Gregg Popovich.
Popovich has coached for over half the lifespan of this team, currently in his 27th season. He enabled all the success the team had through his excellent work as a GM in identifying players to add to the squad, and as a coach who overcame challenges and built the perfect roster to bring him results every single time.
He is arguably the greatest coach ever and it was only right that he was on the sideline for this historic game.
We sincerely appreciate and respect you as a reader of our site. It would help us a lot if you follow us on Google News because of the latest update.
Thanks for following us. We really appreciate your support.
