Spurs to Own Toros

In a great bit of news for the Austin Toros and for basketball fans around the city (and even in the Hill Country), the reigning NBA champion San Antonio Spurs have agreed to purchase our local D-League affiliate from Southwest Basketball, LLC.

As the owners of the Toros, the Spurs will be overseeing all aspects of the team’s management, both on the court and off. This means that from here on out the Toros will be running Spurs coach Gregg Popovich’s vaunted system. Seeing as how that system has been good enough for four NBA championships in nine years (and to make the Spurs the most successful franchise of any American sport over the past decade), it should work out just fine for a minor-league team on the banks of the Colorado River.

In addition, the Spurs will be in charge of hiring all staff (though it appears new head coach Quin Snyder still has a job) and they’ll also have exclusive rights to assign any of their players with one or two years’ experience in the NBA to the Toros, where they’ll get the kind of experience they wouldn’t otherwise get shining Manu Ginobli’s sneakers or helping Tim Duncan move.

With any luck, it will also mean that the Spurs Silver Dancers – experts and artists in all matters terpsichorean – will be available to come to Austin more often to help out our young Capital City Dancers and perhaps give a fledgling sports journalist a shot at an exclusive story or two. (I’m thinking something along the lines of “Silver Dancers: After Dark,” but I’m taking suggestions.)

In other Spurs/Toros news, Cheyne Gadson, the point guard who helped lead the Toros out of the wilderness last season, is playing with the Spurs summer league team in Las Vegas as we speak. We here at the Chronicle wish him luck and are pulling for him to play well enough to win a spot on next year's roster but not so well that he doesn’t end up back at the Convention Center from time to time.

The selfishness of the true sports fan knows no bounds.