The Spurs inspire cliches for a reason

Spend enough time talking about the Spurs and you see how they, as a subject at least, exist somewhere between narrative and reality, myth and meme. Like maybe no other sports team, San Antonio's familiar faces, prolonged success and time-worn narratives of wholesomeness and excellence all blend into a single multi-decade vector that is both hard to reconcile and impossible to ignore.

For the converted, the story is clean enough: when the Spurs are not great they’re at least good (that is, they’re Good in a vaguely karmic sense), and their process and values should propel them to the next chance at greatness.