nba San Antonio Spurs - The Ignored Dynasty - Page 2

You can kinda tell David Stern does not like the Spurs either. He probably tells the NBA not to give them that much attention and prop them up and does not want to have to hoist another trophy for these guys. Because the Spurs don't really treat their "star players" as star players. When Popovich benched 4 players, the Spurs had no problem slapping a fine because people paid to see those "star players" play. Even though in Popovich's point of view, fundamentally he may have done the right thing for his team. They may sell out games but but their strategy is to simply win, not sell out games, not sell shoes, not please sponsors - they just win and leave. And it annoys him how successful they are at that and how statistically they are on top of the NBA overall even though they aren't too glamorous of a team.

This is Wikipedia's list of Spurs' seasons. They are lit up across the board for winning seasons and making the playoffs. Indeed they only missed the playoffs 5 times both in the ABA and NBA.