Three years ago, when Brandon James, the San Antonio Spurs' senior vice president of strategic growth, began thinking about expanding their sphere of influence to Austin, he knew it wouldn’t be simple.

The team has had its G League team here for a while. The cities are only 80 miles apart and have two of the fastest-growing populations in the country. But the process of integrating a sports team into a city is a long one, especially since Austin already has a college equivalent of a pro sports team — the University of Texas.

“One of our major growth initiatives was how do we figure out this Austin market? How do we get intentional about it? And how do we really sort of engage better in the market?” James said.

The easiest way? Instead of fighting Texas for a share of the pie, they would need to show the university how the Spurs could help them.

“We knew that in order to be best received in Austin, that we needed to figure out a way to work with the University of Texas, not as competitors,” James said.

The Texas Longhorns-San Antonio Spurs history

It’s not that UT and the Spurs have never had a relationship. The Longhorns have had plenty of alumni play in San Antonio, including LaMarcus Aldridge, T.J. Ford, Cory Joseph and, most recently, Jabari Rice, who plays for the G League team.

When the Spurs were looking to optimize Tim Duncan’s career, CEO R.C. Buford said, they talked to Edward Coyle, who then worked in the physiology and kinesiology department at UT. And Buford has had an even more personal connection with Texas: His adopted son, Alexis Wangmene, played basketball for the Longhorns from 2007 to 2012.

While Wangmene appeared only sparingly in games, Buford was more concerned about his son’s personal life. It wasn’t the easiest time for Wangmene, who missed a whole year with a knee injury and then lost his mother back in Africa. The way UT supported his child through the tough times made an impact on Buford.

“The school, the student body, the university and the support staff that was there at UT was incredibly important for him in both successful and challenging times,” Buford said.

Moving into Moody

Those connections were a foundation for the new partnership that began in 2021.

One benefit to the partnership is the most obvious one: The Spurs have made sure to carve out two games on their home schedule to play at UT's Moody Center. 

They lost 117-106 to the Denver Nuggets on Friday and will host the Brooklyn Nets at Moody on Sunday. That won't be the last time they visit UT in 2024, though. The Longhorns hosted a coaching clinic last August with basketball coaches Rodney Terry and Vic Schaefer meeting with the Spurs' Gregg Popovich. With the success of that, Texas has decided to make it an annual event.

Terry might be a Los Angeles Lakers fan at heart, but he has a deep respect for the culture developed under Popovich that led to five NBA championships.

“I think just getting the chance to listen to Coach Pop and, you know, obviously R.C. Buford and those guys — listen to their take on adapting and adjusting to a new way, new generational players, and also the process of working with new generation players. Families, everyone included,” Terry said.

Coaching clinics aren’t anything new. The Texas football program hosted San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan — a former Longhorns wide receiver — last year and will host Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay this year. For Josh Fink, however, this is a big step for a team that’s usually kept information so close to the vest that it earned the nickname “the Fortress of Solitude.”

“I think this UT thing and the Austin expansion is part of us leaving some of that behind, being more open to expanding outside of San Antonio. ... We've never worked with a university this closely,” Fink said.

Fink is in a unique position as the Spurs’ senior director of data science, living in Austin and teaching an undergraduate class in the fall at UT. He is a crucial part of the Spurs' analytics department, constantly using data to try to get ahead of other teams. He shares what he learns in his full-time job to teach his class, called Performance in Data Analytics.

“Trying to use everything we know quantitatively about a player to predict what their performance is going to be, how long their careers are going to last, which types of players can play well together,” Fink said.

He lives in Austin because of the city’s affinity with the tech industry and because he liked being close to the university even before he got the teaching gig. That made it a seamless transition when he decided to take the job.

Not only does UT benefit from having someone of Fink’s expertise teaching, but Fink can keep an eye out for talented students he believes can help his organization.

“I think my involvement at UT definitely seems like a benefit for the Spurs in terms of building a relationship. And we have a fellowship program there also, so we're trying to hire out of this school and kind of train people,” he said.

DFW? How about the ASA?

With the Spurs ownership undergoing a change in 2021, there were some murmurs about whether they’d consider a move. One of the new owners is tech billionaire Michael Dell, who lives in Austin. Another is the San Francisco-based private equity firm Sixth Street Partners.

Regardless, they’ve made it clear that a move is not in the plans.

“We're right in the phasing of a $500 million human performance campus as our home training environment in San Antonio. I think that that, in and of itself, tells us where's home,” Buford said.

So what does the future look like for this collaboration? The relationship between the cities would ideally mirror the one between Dallas and Fort Worth.

Colloquially known as the DFW, the metroplex is the model for the future of San Antonio and Austin. Dallas is the city with the pro sports teams while Fort Worth has TCU. However, the Dallas Cowboys’ and Texas Rangers’ stadiums are in Arlington, halfway between the two locales.

Part of the reason for the Cowboys’ mass popularity is their relationship with the entire metroplex, and while the cities are different, they’re able to unite for their teams.

“Austin is Austin. You know, 'Keep Austin Weird,’ ” Buford said. "San Antonio is, you know, it's incredibly cultural. Three hundred years of the Alamo. I think they're different, but I think the people of Texas are incredibly welcoming. They're passionate about sports. And I think we want to connect where our fans are.”

Whether the Spurs will be able to bridge the gap between San Antonio and Austin will be seen in the coming years. Dallas had the advantage of not having to deal with one of the most robust college sports brands in the country when connecting to Fort Worth.

At the same time, the partnership between UT and the Spurs is exactly what could lead to the blending of two distinct sports franchises. It’s still small steps, but there’s only room to grow from here.

“I will say this is the least amount of presence the Spurs are ever going to have in the city of Austin. ... For the foreseeable future, we're planning on growing that presence,” Fink said.

Sunday's game

San Antonio Spurs vs. Brooklyn Nets, 6 p.m., Moody Center, Bally Sports Southwest/NBA

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: San Antonio Spurs return for two games in Austin, solidifying UT pact