Spurs

NBA teams are often known to spend travel time playing cards. In their championship year of 1999, the San Antonio Spurs played a real-time sci-fi strategy ...

And he did, the very next week,” Rose said. An earlier version of this story misidentified The International as a "StarCraft" esports event. Elie drew a comparison between that Spurs team and the New England Patriots, in terms of professionalism and leadership. … But I was sort of envious,” he said. We spent any time not on the court playing the game,” Rose said. But on the plane back to San Antonio, with not much else to do, they broke out their laptops and started playing. “Very nice guys, shaking hands with everyone, and I sort of had to change that a little.” That’s not to say “StarCraft” didn’t have its benefits. Rose said he played video games before joining the team in 1997, mentioning series such as Madden, Zelda and Diablo. It remains unclear who took the photo, but it clearly shows Robinson, Rose, Hall of Famer Tim Duncan, and Sean Elliot all playing the video game “StarCraft” on their laptops. [playing cards](https://vault.si.com/vault/1998/05/11/last-call-the-greatest-sports-dynasty-of-the-90s-may-or-may-not-be-about-to-hang-it-up-but-behind-the-scenes-the-chicago-bulls-season-has-certainly-felt-like-a-farewell-tour) on the floor in the aisle of a plane. The photo has gone viral numerous times on platforms such as Reddit and Twitter, usually with a post expressing surprise at an NBA championship team celebrating its title by nerding out on a real-time strategy game as though they were a high school AV club.