What can the San Antonio Spurs teach us about life, leadership, and long-term success?
Many people see the Spurs as one of the most respected organizations in basketball, known for championships, consistency, and a culture that has lasted for decades. But what if the bigger lesson is not just about sports, but about the principles that can shape a business, a family, and a life?
In this episode of Retire in Texas, Darryl Lyons reflects on the San Antonio Spurs organization and the attributes that have helped define what many people call “The Spurs Way.” Drawing from years of observation and personal respect for the organization, Darryl breaks down four qualities that have made the Spurs stand out: humility, relationships, foresight, and resilience.
You’ll learn:
• Why humility has played such an important role in the Spurs’ culture.
• How relationships, family, and intentional connection helped shape the organization.
• Why long-term thinking and foresight have allowed the Spurs to adapt across different eras.
• What “pounding the rock” teaches us about consistency, patience, and resilience.
• How lessons from the Spurs can apply to business, family, money, and life.
The San Antonio Spurs are more than a basketball team to the city they represent. Darryl explains why their example offers valuable lessons for anyone trying to build something that lasts.
Benefiting from the show? We’d appreciate it if you left a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Transcript:
Hey, this is Darryl Lyons, CEO and Co-Founder of PAX Financial Group. And you’re listening to Retire in Texas. This information is general in nature only. It’s not intended to provide specific investment, tax, or legal advice. Visit PAXFinancialGroup.com for more information. So, this one, this particular show, I want to cover something that I’ve, somewhat of a passion for me, but it’s the San Antonio Spurs.
And there’s some things about this organization that I want to share. I, have been around the organization in various aspects. Some of you guys know to the degree, that I’ve heard some stories that maybe most public haven’t, some of them, of course, that share freely, and some of them I wouldn’t. But there’s just been me being around the Spurs organization in various ways for a number of years that has garnered a lot of respect from me on how they treat people and the organization at large.
And I thought I’d share some of the stories with you and organize it in such a way that you could take these themes and apply it to either your business or your family or your life. And so, for attributes I wanted to share that organize my thoughts that are really attributes that make an organization like the San Antonio Spurs who they are.
You know, it’s a 22 year. They had a 22 year streak where they didn’t miss the playoffs. An organization that had five championships. One of the, an organization that is considered one of the best of all time. And there’s a lot of people that play a role into you whenever you see an organization that’s that successful.
And Jim Collins, he wrote a book From Good to Great, and he examined successful businesses. And try to extrapolate what made good businesses great. And it’s a fascinating study and a lot of people reference that, there’s a study that was done called The Longevity Project that identifies the attributes of those people who live long.
And what are those? And so when we get a chance to say, okay, what are some of the attributes that we may be able to extrapolate from learning from the successful organization that’s done it over a long period of time, decades, and maybe apply it to our business, our life or family. I think that’s worthy of unpacking in a podcast.
I thought the timing of me being able to share this information with you was good, because the Spurs are doing really well. Some of you guys still follow. You’re not from San Antonio, but it’s really exciting times. The San Antonio Spurs have a great team. I was at the game recently, and one of the things I thought was the best thing that I saw at the game was thousands of people that were really excited about what’s going on.
San Antonio has one professional sports team. It’s the ninth or I’m sorry, it’s the eighth largest city in the country, sometimes seventh between Phoenix, but it has one sports team, a multicultural city with a large Hispanic population, African-American, white, different blends, you know, just like a lot of cities. That said, all that aside and give each other high fives and hugs for the Spurs, it’s a really cool thing.
I’ve tried to express this to my non-sports fans friends, and I think they get it. But those people just. If you’re Spurs fans, you got to see what’s happening, what it does for the city. And for that reason, it’s important for us to say, what have they done? Like, what is it that makes them great and how do we duplicate it if we can?
This cycle of contention and then, you know, maybe seasons that they didn’t do so good, but then they came back. And what a lot of people say, it’s the Spurs way. So, what do we learn from this to apply to our lives, to our businesses, to our families? We got I mean, there’s got to be something here. I mean, obviously I’m not seven foot tall, so I can’t necessarily take that or I can’t dribble or dunk or do any of that, frankly.
But there’s other things I can take. And so what is it? Another author, doctor, Rabbi Lapin took inventory of the Jewish population and said, what are the attributes of the Jewish population that we could extrapolate to apply to our lives? What makes the Jewish business community at large so successful? So, we’ve done this this idea of extrapolating, attributes out of successful organizations or groups of people over time is something that we do, but we never really done this with the San Antonio Spurs.
So here I am, trying my best to be able to take what I’ve learned and observed over decades. I’ve been a fan since 1989, and so I wish I could do this probably over for podcast. And I’m going to do it over one, and I’ve already spent the first five minutes setting it up, so I don’t have much longer.
I want to talk about humility because humility is a key attribute of the San Antonio Spurs. Now, for those that have seen Gregg Popovich over the years and you might say there is no humility with that man, I would not argue with that. I think there has been moments that you’ve seen him. Probably, not show a lot of humility.
But as an organization at large, it is a humble group of people and, and humility by definition, it isn’t necessarily denying your greatness or refusing. It’s more so refusing, to believe that the world revolves around you. And it’s really even more than that. It’s thinking of others. And one of the things I think the Spurs organization has done is not just think of others, but thinks of the city.
You know, a lot of times when you see the San Antonio Spurs and they’ve had success, they talk about the fans in the city because it is ingrained in them when they come here, how important this city is. Or how important the Spurs are to the city. So it’s setting aside your greatness in such a way that not you don’t discount it, but you recognize there’s a bigger thing going on here.
I was talking with, with an executive about Project Marvel, which was a big downtown project, and I said, you know what? It was a tricky thing because they were trying to get this huge taxpayer base to fund a new arena downtown. So, I had a chance to visit with city council, mayoral candidates, Spurs executives.
I talked with a lot of people about this, but afterwards I talked with an executive and I said, if you could have done it differently because there’s a lot of once you like, once this got out, there’s a lot of opinions. I said, if you could have done it differently, what would you have done? And he thought about it and he said, I probably would have gotten in front of this sooner.
And, we talked a little bit and I’m paraphrasing for the sake of time, but basically we got to the point that it’s there’s so much good that the San Antonio Spurs do from their community efforts to their community partnership to the inner city youth investments is something called Spurs Give, that they don’t tell. They don’t go out and brag about.
So, nobody recognizes the indirect investment that the San Antonio Spurs has in the greater San Antonio area because they don’t talk about it. And it’s rooted in a place of humility. And so that was somewhat of a failure of their part to share with the greater public that a loss of a basketball organization was really the loss of a partner who’s investing in the city to make this place a better place for everyone.
And so that sometimes humility bites you. But humility is the fabric of the organization. Manu Ginobili well, incredible athlete. Just a fascinating athlete and human being in a lot of ways. Decided I’m not going to I’m okay not being a starter. And I’ll come off the bench, set the stage for a guy named Keldon Johnson to do the same thing.
Who is an Olympian. And he said, I’ll come off the bench. Manu Ginobili came off the bench. And if he can do it, I can do it. And it’s that kind of humility. That Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, they were I mean, they were yelled at by the coach and a lot of people, a lot of egos would have said, I’m out of here.
I’m going to go somewhere else. But the egos that came to San Antonio, they saw that the superstar players were taking heat and they said, look, if those guys are willing to take the heat from coaches, then I am too. And there is a degree of humility. You know, when, another Tim Duncan, description or I guess, an attribute of humility that I think is worth mentioning is and juxtapose that with Kobe Bryant, who’s a Laker, one of the greatest of all time.
When Kobe retired, he told everyone, I’m gonna retire at the end of the season. So, when he went around, everyone was celebrating every single game. Duncan retired at the end of the season like, no fanfare, just, hey, I’m out. It’s the humility. I can give you example after example after example. There’s just humility in this organization. Again, like I said, sometimes can bite you, but for the most part it’s a factor of the organization.
And I also just want to let you know, hey, it’s not like there’s sprouts of lack of humility. That’s just what happens when people are studs, what they do. But for the most part, it’s this organization of humility. I love that, and I think it’s so special. I did write about humility and in my first book and, I don’t want to go on the tangent, but if you want to read more about that, it’s the small business, big pressure, but okay.
The second one is this one’s tough for me, but relationships matter to the San Antonio Spurs organization. You know when these international guys I mentioned, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili from Argentina, Gregg Popovich is known to say, look, we’re going to do we’re going to do dinners together. And not just like these.
Hey, we’re going to all go out to eat. And it’s just very structured. You know, we’re going to go and. We’re going to, we’re going to have, you know, steak together. We’re going to have wine. We’re going to talk, not just basketball. We’re going to talk about history. We’re talking about life. That was a big deal.
Gregg Popovich was really good at that. In fact, it almost messed up I would say almost messed up. It did it did hurt the Orlando Magic because this is a true story. Tim Duncan was about to leave the city of San Antonio. The Orlando Magic, they were about to they were wooing him to play there with Grant Hill.
But at the time, Tim’s wife, Amy, asked Orlando’s executive team, what’s your policy on families being able to travel to games in the team airplane and the executives? Orlando said wives aren’t allowed on the plane. And as a result of that, Amy said, you’re not going to Orlando. And so, Tim Duncan stayed in San Antonio, and it’s because it’s the city of San Antonio was intentional about relationships and about family.
If you go into the, so there’s the tunnels where the players come out of the to the court, and if you go straight down the tunnel, there’s this really nice restaurant where all the rich people eat and hang out and rub elbows. And then to the right of that, there’s this room that’s just for players families.
And so the idea of relationships and family is not something just talked about. A guy named John Murray who was drafted by the Spurs, he was in Seattle and he was around gangs and his mother was incarcerated. And the team just rallied around him and really talked about how we need to break through this thing.
I’ll give you one last example of how our relationships matter. Kawhi Leonard left the San Antonio Spurs. When he came back, everyone booed him, I booed him, I was mad, I was in the stands booing. Gregg Popovich came on the microphone and told everyone to stop booing. Now we all rolled our eyes like, Greg, come on, we want to boo.
We’re going to boo. But I think it was just an indicator of like how important relationships are to that organization. I got to land the plane, but I got two more. So, hang with me. Okay, there’s two more. And these are all very interesting to me. The third attribute I would say is the San Antonio Spurs that’s worth unpacking a little bit is foresight. You know, I always say think long term.
And this is kind of one of the things that the Spurs do really well. It’s kind of the ability to not just like anchor into insight, which would be today, but rather like a it’s looking down the road and then adjusting accordingly. I ask somebody in the organization, I think I go, you know, pop’s kind of out loud a lot.
Do you think he’ll run for mayor? And this person said, well, if he runs for mayor, he’ll have a plan. Meaning that he has a plan. He’s thoughtful and so is RC Buford and the whole organization. They just kind of look around corners differently. And they were the first ones that really started to take seriously, very seriously the international market, so to speak, of talent.
And they were able to bring in Manu Ginobili from Argentina, Tony Parker from France. They continued with Boris Diaw from France, Patty Mills from Australia, Tiago Splitter from Brazil. I mean, basically it was the United Nations for the San Antonio Spurs. And they just had that foresight that today it’s just common. But they had the foresight.
They just were able to start getting ahead and, you know, they didn’t have at the time, they didn’t maybe have the high draft picks because they were playing pretty decent. They had David and Tim and, but they needed talent. And so, they went overseas and they just they’ve been very strategic about it.
I mean, some people could say that they tanked I don’t know, I mean, I can’t say one way or another, but it worked out that they were very thoughtful about trading away some pretty above average player. Jakob Poetl, they traded him away. They traded DeMar DeRozen in a way. And as a result of those trades they got future draft picks.
But their record also got pretty poor. And as a result of that they were able to get a high draft pick that ended up being Victor Wembanyama. So very strategic in their ability to think down the road. And then they had a, but they still have a bunch of draft picks that are, really going to set them up for decades.
It’s if you think about the chess game that they’ve had to be able to get where they’re at today. It hasn’t been by accident. The last thing I’ll say, I think an attribute worth mentioning, and I hope I’ve done a fair job to also point out and be critical of some of the things that they’ve done. But they’re resilient, you know, think about it like in 2013, this broke my heart.
Ray Allen had a shot. And that really cost the San Antonio Spurs the championship. They were already bringing out the trophy and they lost that championship game against Miami Heat. But then, 2014 came out and they were just focused. They were resilient. They, you know, if you look on YouTube, there’s this video called The Most Beautiful Basketball Ever.
They just dismantled everyone. And it was just through this process of passing and this unselfishness we talk about. And it wasn’t it wasn’t chest pounding. It was just pure execution. And they did it. I just I think that’s probably one of the best sports examples of resilience you could possibly have. But it wasn’t by accident. In their locker room they have this example is statement.
And then you’ll hear them say pounding the rock. That’s something they talk about a lot. And it’s this idea of a stonecutter hammering away at a rock perhaps 100 times without as much of a crack showing in it. So it’s just pounding the rock. Yet it’s the hundredth and first blow after pounding it hundreds of times, or 100 times.
It’s the 101st blow that the rock eventually splits into. And it wasn’t the one blow that did it. It was the 100 that did it before. And so, it’s the idea of being resilient through the challenging times, just being consistent and consistent and consistent and the power of consistency and what happens. And that’s always been the case.
I mean, they won a championship in 1999, which was a with a shortened season, and they have been a organization of resilience in difficult times. And they bounce back. And it’s just a part of the ethos of the organization. The organization as a whole has a lot of success, but it is just like life, there’s just challenging times. I mean, there’s players that have gotten not gotten along.
Of course, he had Dennis Rodman, who is a pretty complex guy in the organization they had. They drafted a hot shot superstar named Josh Primo who ended up, you know, doing some bad things. And Kawhi Leonard was a debacle. Nobody still really knows what happened there, but a lot of stuff. But that’s just how life is.
There’s just a lot of stuff, like all of our families and our businesses and, we just deal with it. But if we think about these four attributes at San Antonio Spurs and try to integrate them in such a way that it defines who we are, humility, the reality of how important relationships are, having foresight, thinking down the road not just for today, and then being resilient through the difficult times.
If we can take those four attributes from the San Antonio Spurs and apply it to our lives, to our businesses, to, the way we treat money, as an example, like, navigating through difficult markets as well, being resilient through markets. I think that we’re going to find that those attributes do transfer over to our lives very well.
And, I think it’s worthy of just, paying attention to San Antonio Spurs and for not just a route for them, but to see, that what they do as an example for all of us. So proud to have known the organization and had some insight over the years. And I’m, honored to be able to share that with you today.
And as always, you think different when you think long term. Have a great day.
Listen on:
