Can the San Antonio Spurs function as a regional team with games in Austin?

AUSTIN, Texas — For the second time in as many seasons, the Moody Center on the campus of the University of Texas became the temporary home court of the San Antonio Spurs.

A standing-room-only crowd of 16,222 treated the Spurs’ Friday night game against the Denver Nuggets as if it were a playoff matchup. And never mind that the Spurs (14-53) were playing the reigning NBA champion Denver Nuggets (47-20), which are now back atop the Western Conference standings.

The atmosphere was electric — from start to finish.

What fun it was, even for the Spurs big men who had to deal with 2023 NBA Finals MVP Nikola Jokić, looking lately very much like this season’s most valuable player.

“Actually, it is (fun),” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said a few days ago of facing Jokić. “He’s something else.”

“Something else” for Jokić on Friday was 31 points, seven rebounds and five assists without him playing at all in the fourth quarter of Denver’s 117-106 victory. In  the three quarters he played, Jokić gave Victor Wembanyama another lesson in what the Spurs rookie called “controlling the pace of the game, never being in a hurry and making his teammates better.”

Sounds much like the description of an MVP.

Austin proved a welcoming host to both teams as it neared the conclusion of its 2024 South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival despite Nuggets coach Michael Malone’s bemusement at having to play a game in a “non-NBA” city.

“I don’t know why we’re here,” Malone said 90 minutes before tipoff. “I’m still trying to figure that out. But, here we are, so you’ve got to embrace it.”

The game was in Austin because the Spurs organization is committed to embracing its fans in one of the fastest-growing cities in America. They will play a second game there on Sunday against the Brooklyn Nets to finish off what the organization calls “I-35 Series,” recognition of the highway that connects the two cities separated by about 70 miles of the heavily trafficked freeway.

You also can call it one more intriguing aspect of Austin’s annual SXSW festival, and therein lies much of the reasoning behind the Spurs organization’s outreach to Texas’ capital city.

What better way to shed the team’s long-standing designation as a small market franchise than to cultivate one of the wealthiest cities in one of the fastest-growing areas in the country during one of its singular events?

“We have a market that isn’t in the top 10 in the country,” R.C. Buford, CEO of Spurs Sports and Entertainment (SS&E) told The Athletic. “When we connect our San Antonio and Austin markets we become one of the major players in the professional sports community.

“We’ve got the fastest-growing region in the nation. Between Monterrey (Mexico), south Texas, central Texas and Austin it’s the fastest-growing economic region in North America. So, we want to come meet our fans where they are. We’ve got great fans and have a community in Austin…