The Spurs Have Spent 48 Days With A Losing Record Over The Last 20 Years

Let’s talk about the San Antonio Spurs, which are trying to find their footing this season as they are waiting for Kawhi Leonard to come back from a quadriceps injury. They are 4-4 on the year after losing to Golden State on Thursday night, and if they lose to Charlotte on Friday night, they’ll have an uncharacteristic sub-.500 record.

“Uncharacteristic” doesn’t apply to this particular Spurs team, necessarily. Instead, it applies to the last two decades of San Antonio basketball, as the franchise just does not have losing records since it took Tim Duncan with the first overall pick in the 1997 NBA Draft.

For proof, please consult this chart of the teams with the fewest days of having losing records since 1997. If you are like me, you are about to laugh very hard.

Yes, the Spurs have spent a month and a half (give or take a few days) with a sub-.500 record dating back to when Bill Clinton was still the President of the United States. This is unbelievable and hilarious and about a million other things that illustrate how incredible the franchise has been over the last two decades. In 48 days, you can remodel your bathroom, decide you don’t like how it came out, and remodel your bathroom again. San Antonio has spent that much time having more losses than wins over twenty years.

Former Dime managing editor Spencer Lund went back and found out when these subpar records for the Spurs have occurred, and when put into these terms, it’s somehow even more mind-numbing.

https://twitter.com/SpencerTyrel/status/926272511830052864

Thirty two of those 48 days came over two seasons. There have been six seasons — potentially seven if something funky happens in the coming days/weeks — out of the last 20 where they have had a sub-.500 record at any point. Obviously, this means that they have spent 14 out of the last 20 years where their head has been floating above water from start to finish. This seems impossible.

It’s a testament to a whole bunch of different elements of the Spurs’ organization — from its front office to its coaching staff to its players — that this period of extended dominance has happened. We all say that we appreciate what San Antonio has done ever since Duncan was drafted, but stats like this show just how unfathomably good the team has been in that time.