Open Thread: The significance of a Spurs victory tonight

This has been a record-breaking-season for Pop. Surpassing Don Nelson for all-time regular season wins is a huge achievement. The Spurs battling a losing season emphasizes the accomplishment all the more.

At the start of the 2018 season, a stat came out that the Spurs had been below .500 for 48 days over the last 20 years. At that time, the Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets had 911 and 913 days below .500 respectively and the rest of the NBA was over 1,000. In 2020, that number had doubled. Now…not sure we want to count the Spurs time with a losing record.

Tonight’s match-up against the Portland Trail Blazers should be a slugfest of two teams with nothing to lose. There is no deep playoff run in the future for either teams, but here’s the caveat — if the Spurs win, they’ll have a winning record against the Portland Trail Blazers. If they lose, the two will be tied.

The San Antonio Spurs have all-time winning records against every NBA team. Take that in for a moment, the Spurs have beat every team more than they have lost. They are the only team in all of major sports to have that accomplishment. If Portland wins tonight, the two will have a tied 89-89 all-time record.

In fact, there are three games left against Portland this season. In addition to tonight’s match-up, Damian Lillard and company will be in San Antonio on April 1st and April 3rd. So it’s anyone’s record.

Incidentally, the Trail Blazers were the last team for the Spurs to beat to give them an edge on all franchises.

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