The San Antonio Spurs last won the NBA title during the 2013-2014 NBA season. The Spurs have five titles in franchise history.
During the 2014 playoffs, they defeated the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals in five games. San Antonio had a loaded roster under head coach Gregg Popovich. Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker were the core of that team, but Kawhi Leonard was the NBA Finals MVP that season.
2014 San Antonio Spurs Ranked as the 4th Best NBA Champion Over the Last 25 Years
Brad Botkin, James Herbert, and Sam Quinn of CBSSports.com all ranked the NBA champions over the last 25 years. They all had the '14 Spurs team as the 4th best NBA champion over the last 25 seasons. Only the '18 Golden State Warriors, the '01 Los Angeles Lakers, and the '17 Warriors were all ranked ahead of the '14 Spurs team.
Quinn said about this Spurs team,
"They had no award winners. Only Tony Parker made the All-Star Game. Nobody on the team averaged even 17 points per game. And yet, almost unquestionably, this will be the Spurs championship most fans remember and revere, the one in which they achieved basketball nirvana and ended the LeBron James era in Miami with some of the most beautiful basketball the NBA has ever produced.
Here's a mind-boggling statistic: in the NBA Finals, the Spurs averaged 100 more passes per game than the Heat in a four-game romp. Their 52.8% field goal percentage remains a Finals record. The first four Spurs championships were widely regarded as boring by casual fans. The fifth was anything but. It was everything we want basketball to be. They may not have been as talented as other champions, but they achieved levels of cohesion, clarity and creativity that no basketball team has reached since."
San Antonio moved the ball with ease during those NBA Finals. The Spurs relied on many players to get the job done. During the regular season, they finished with a 62-20 record and were the number one seed in the Western Conference. During the playoffs, they had a 16-7 record. Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili were toward the end of there careers.
Leonard was able to step up in a big way during those NBA Finals, especially with guarding Lebron James. This was a finals rematch from the 2012-2013 NBA season where the Heat were able to comeback down 3-2 in the series against the Spurs to win another title. San Antonio avenged themselves during the 2013-2014 NBA season by hanging its fifth banner. There is no doubt that this team was one of the best NBA champions over the last 25 years.
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