SAN ANTONIO — When he made a tribute video for the Spurs last month, Colin Stanton said he didn't think it would gain much traction.

YouTube is filled with fan-made dunk highlight reels of NBA stars, while his Spurs video, “The Beautiful Game,” features crisp passing and layups.

The reaction to his video wasn't a gradual buildup like a developing Spurs play. Instead, it was a fast-break slam dunk.

Three days after the video was posted to YouTube, it had more than 1 million views.

Stanton is one of many fans who have shared their love of the Spurs online, as Spurs appreciation has spread globally. There are Spurs tribute videos, songs and fan art as Spurs memes spread through YouTube and Twitter.

“The old misconception of the Spurs being boring has gone out the window,” Stanton said. “People everywhere love watching the Spurs play.”

Stanton's video opens with Magic Johnson describing the beauty of Spurs basketball and shows a series of highlights set to classical music.

More Information



Spurs - The Beautiful Game

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMtWtQj6pzA

| King Kyle Lee - All Spurs Everything

Kevin Russell - Manu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWR_VITiqPA

| Igo Mendoza Gallegos - Go Espurs Go

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Stanton, 26, said he spent about a month collecting highlights to make the video.

He posted it before Game 1 of the Western Conference finals and it reached 1.5 million views in a week before an NBA representative emailed him to take it down because of a copyright issue.

Stanton, who lives in San Diego, California, said he made the video since he became a Spurs fan through his love of international basketball.

With the Spurs' nine international players, they're picking up many fans outside South Texas.

“A lot of people have felt the same way I do about the Spurs for a lot of years, and I did my best to show that,” Stanton said. “I always feel like the Spurs don't exist in the media for 11 months of the year outside of San Antonio, so I wanted to make a video for people to appreciate them.”

Spurs viral videos aren't just done by fans. A clip of the Spurs as White Walkers from the HBO show “Game of Thrones” was made by the Turner company Bleacher Report, and ESPN had artist Richard Swarbrick animate a video of Manu Ginobili's clutch 3-pointer in Game 6 against Oklahoma City.

The Spurs page or “subreddit” on the online forum Reddit is one of the more popular team pages on the site, with more than 4,300 subscribers

For comparison, the Miami Heat have more than 5,000 and the Dallas Mavericks about 2,300. The forum's main NBA page has more than 185,000 subscribers.

“I remember in 2007, we had the label as boring, slow and old, and nobody outside of San Antonio was giving the Spurs much credit,” said Jeff Goldner, 22, a moderator of the Reddit page, r/NBASpurs. “Now that there's an online appreciation of the Spurs, I bet the majority of Spurs fans on Reddit don't live in San Antonio.”

While video editors such as Stanton express their Spurs love with montages, several musicians in silver and black have made tribute songs.

During last year's NBA final run, local rapper King Kyle Lee recorded “All Spurs Everything,” which samples the Trinidad James song “All Gold Everything.” Lee's video has more than 350,000 YouTube views.

“Coach Pop winning the game/Danny Green making it rain,” says one of the lyrics, as Lee names every player on the roster.

For this season's run, Lee released an updated version on SoundCloud with a mariachi backing band. A former University of the Incarnate Word basketball player, Lee has a white gold and diamond Spurs necklace that he said is worth about $8,000.

“I just got so tired of everybody doubting the Spurs last year that I wanted to do something about it,” Lee said. “I was a little shocked when I gained a lot of fans online because of it.”

Kevin Russell, an Austin native whose wife is from San Antonio, is a longtime Spurs fan who remembers being in the Alamodome in 1995 on the night Selena was killed. Russell, the lead singer of the Gourds and of a side project Shinyribs, wrote “Manu” in honor of his favorite player.

“Once killed a bat with his bare hands/In the middle of a game to protect the fans,” Russell sings.

“I was just strumming one day when I came up with it,” he said. “What Manu does is just stuff of legend, so the lyrics came pretty naturally.”

There are many other tribute songs online, including the mariachi-ish “Go Espurs Go” by Igo Mendoza Gallegos, which keeps gaining attention as it's discovered by new fans at every playoff run.

One thing all the fans making tributes said was that they don't want attention for themselves; they just want the Spurs to get the recognition they deserve.

“I just want people to appreciate the Spurs in full,” Stanton said. “If I helped in some way, that's great, but all the inspiration comes from the Spurs. I guess that mentality is kind of like the Spurs, too. (Coach) Pop would like that.”

lchan@express-news.net

Twitter:@lornechan