“The San Antonio Spurs are co-owners of the Staples center!”: The Texas-based team is the only visiting team with a winning record at Crypto.com Arena

Arun Sharma | 30/12/2021
"The San Antonio Spurs are co-owners of the Staples center!": The Texas-based team is the only visiting team with a winning record at Crypto.com Arena

The Staples Center may have been a fortress for the Los Angeles Lakers, but the San Antonio Spurs had the keys to the gate

The Staples center is an iconic name in sports history – by and large the most famous modern stadium name. While two of the Los Angeles teams have had to share the stadium, only one has ever experienced success in that arena. Not many road teams can say they have a winning record in the Los Angeles stadium, in fact only one can say that.

The San Antonio Spurs coached by Gregg Popovich have a winning record against both the LA teams. While it is a close shave with the Lakers (one game difference at 91-89) they’ve trounced the Clippers 131-48. There have been great battles over the years and even though the building remains the same, the name change means that the Staples center record stays forever.

The Spurs have been one of the most consistent teams in the history of the sport, but they are currently in rebuild mode. The team still has the identity it once had when Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili played, albeit it is a much younger set of players. The last battle at the Staples center ended with a Spurs win, easily blowing past a problem riddled Lakers squad.

Also Read: “Staples Center belongs to Shaq and Kobe Bryant forever!”: NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal shockingly admits he is glad the Lakers’ iconic arena is being renamed

San Antonio Spurs have had the Lakers’ and the Clippers’ numbers for many years

The Clippers are the third-best in a two-team arena – such is the state of the franchise. Always the minnows, never the victor, the Clippers are finally looking to move away from the shared stadium. The Crypto.com Arena shall only lost one LA team now, and that is the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Lakers and the Spurs however was a different ballgame. The 20+ years of the rivalry after moving to the new arena was great. Each team won multiple championships, and both had arguably a top 3 player of all time in Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan. The black and silver against the purple and gold – it was always a royal basketball affair.

While the Lakers have had multiple coaches throughout these years including the likes of Phil Jackson and Pat Riley, the Spurs have stuck with one coach and it has paid dividends.

This meant that the identity of the Spurs never faltered – something that the Lakers lost after their super team fiasco in 2012-13. The Clippers don’t even count in this equation, because they’ve never been in the same strata as the other two teams in discussion.

Also Read: “Did Nikola Jokic just twerk before jump ball!?”: Denver Nuggets reigning MVP makes the referee laugh out loud right before tip off against Los Angeles Clippers

Post Edited By: Amulya Shekhar
Los Angeles Lakers San Antonio Spurs Staples Center

About the author

Arun Sharma

Arun Sharma is an NBA Editor at The SportsRush. A double degree holder and a digital marketer by trade, Arun has always been a sports buff. He fell in love with the sport of basketball at a young age and has been a Lakers fan since 2006. What started as a Kobe Bryant obsession slowly turned into a lifelong connection with the purple and gold. Arun has been an ardent subscriber to the Mamba mentality and has shed tears for a celebrity death only once in his life. He believes January 26, 2020, was the turning point in the passage of time because Kobe was the glue holding things together. From just a Lakers bandwagoner to a basketball fanatic, Arun has spent 16 long years growing up along with the league. He thinks Stephen Curry has ruined basketball forever, and the mid-range game is a sight to behold. Sharma also has many opinions about football (not the American kind), F1, MotoGP, tennis, and cricket.

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