Who would be your NBA team if the San Antonio Spurs never existed?

Press release:

August 5, 1976- The National Basketball Association (NBA) merges with its rival, the American Basketball Association (ABA), and takes on the ABA’s four most successful franchises: the Denver Nuggets, the Indiana Pacers, the New York Nets and the Kentucky Colonels.

In this “what if,” we determine- if the San Antonio Spurs had not made the cut for the ABA/NBA merger, who would you be rooting for now? Forty-five years have passed the since the ABA Spurs (formerly the Dallas Chaparrals) joined the NBA. Were not for a $1 deal, the Chaps may have never moved to San Antonio and been christened the Spurs at all.

Without the move, the Spurs would not have made the cut for the NBA.

Assuming they would also not have qualified for an expansion team, there is no professional basketball in San Antonio.

So, who would you be rooting for?

Would you do as many Texans do with football and baseball and treat it geographically. The Dallas Cowboys, Houston Texans, Texas Rangers, and Houston Astros get love here in San Antonio, but mostly because there is no highway rivalry.

Would it be based on players you like? In the 70s and 80s that would have possibly associated you with a team more than in today’s more fluid basketball. And side question- can you imagine an alternate universe where you actually root against Timothy Theodore Duncan? And no one has ever heard of William Anthony Parker, Jr. and Emanuel David Ginóbili? No POP!?!?!

Okay, may have stepped too far away from this exercise. Let’s reel it back in. Deep breathe. Okay. I’m back. Got a little woozy for a second.

Let’s not stack rosters with “what ifs,” just the lack of a San Antonio Spurs.

If the Spurs had dissolved after the ABA merged in 1976, which NBA team would you be rooting for today...and why?

Go ___________ Go !

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