San Antonio Spurs

The San Antonio Spurs are a professional basketball team based in San Antonio, Texas. They play in the National Basketball Association (NBA). more...

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The Spurs in San Antonio

The Spurs are the only major professional sports franchise to be located in the San Antonio area, and the city shares a special bond with the team almost unmatched in the rest of the NBA. Spurs players are active members of the San Antonio community, and many former Spurs are still active in San Antonio, like David Robinson's Carver Academy, the George Gervin Youth Center or fan favorite Malik Rose and his Philly Cheesesteak restaurant, Malik's Philly's Phamous.

In part because of this community involvement, Spurs fans have been among the most loyal in the NBA. The Spurs set several NBA attendance records while playing at the Alamodome, including the largest crowd ever for a NBA Finals game in 1999, and the Spurs continue to sell out the smaller, more intimate AT&T Center on a regular basis. The Spurs' rallying cry of "Go Spurs Go!" has endeared itself to the city of San Antonio, and the phrase pops up all over the city as the season progresses into the playoffs and the Spurs inch closer to a possible title.

San Antonio has also garnered praise for the way its citizens celebrate Spurs championships. When the Spurs win a title, San Antonians jam up the streets downtown, march around waving flags, throw confetti and honk car horns until dawn, but with little incidence of crime. There has yet to be a major riot involving a Spurs title celebration.

Team history

Early franchise history in the ABA

The San Antonio Spurs started out as the Dallas Chaparrals of the original version of the American Basketball Association (ABA) in 1967. The team suffered from poor attendance and general disinterest in Dallas. In fact, during the 1970-1971 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, Texas, at the Tarrant County Coliseum, as well as Lubbock, Texas, at the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum, but this proved a failure and the team returned full-time to Dallas in time for the 1971-1972 season, splitting their games at Moody Coliseum and State Fair Coliseum.

After missing the playoffs for the first time in their existence in 1972-1973, the team was put up for sale. The team was acquired by a group of 36 San Antonio businessmen, led by Angelo Drossos and Red McCombs who actually leased the team from the original Dallas ownership group, relocated the team to San Antonio, Texas and renamed them the Spurs. The team's primary colors were changed from the red, white, and blue of the Chapparrals to the now familiar silver and black motif of the Spurs.

The team quickly made themselves at home at San Antonio's HemisFair Arena playing to increasingly large and raucous crowds. The early Spurs were led by ABA veteran James Silas and bolstered by the acquisition in early-1974 of future NBA Hall-of-Famer George Gervin from the Virginia Squires. Even though playoff success would elude the team in the ABA, the Spurs had suddenly found themselves among the top teams in the ABA. In 1976, the ABA folded, threatening the future of San Antonio's sole professional sports franchise. The NBA however decided to admit four ABA teams into the league, with the Spurs being one of them along with the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers and the New York Nets.

Read more at Wikipedia.org