Uncovered video shows 1999 Spurs playing StarCraft during NBA Finals

Bill Cooney

Video of the 1999 San Antonio Spurs playing the original StarCraft between games of the NBA Finals has been shared on Reddit, and it’s an absolutely awesome blast from the past.

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Just before the Millennium, the Spurs, led by the legendary Greg Popovich, dominated the New York Knicks in the 1999 NBA Finals, walking away with a 4-1 win in the series.

Newly uncovered video seems to show that several of the Spurs legends from that team kept their skills sharp by playing one another in the original StarCraft.

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Legends playing a legendary game

The video was posted to r/NBA by user cacacunty and it shows David Robinson, Sean Elliot, Malik Rose and Tim Duncan playing 2v2 StarCraft on LAN.

It’s about as 90s as a video can get, and the huge laptops, along with the trackball mice bring up memories of a simpler time in gaming.

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It’s revealed that Robinson, who was given the nickname “The Admiral” after his prior service as an officer in the U.S. Navy, also used the moniker as his Battletag for StarCraft.

Turns out Robinson also liked to talk trash during StarCraft matches, maybe even almost as much as he liked to throw down massive dunks on any and all opponents on the court.

David Robinson was that friend who never stopped talking smack on Bnet.
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The 2v2 was an epic matchup of Malik Rose and Tim Duncan facing off against Sean Elliot and David Robinson, with the duo of Elliot and Robinson walking away victorious.

It would be really interesting to know if any of these superstars has kept up with StarCraft in the two decades since this was filmed. 

Maybe they gave StarCraft 2 a shot or have hopped back in to the original with StarCraft: Remastered. Unfortunately, Dexerto was unable to interview any of the legends before this story was published to find out.

Blizzard EntertainmentStarCraft: Remastered was released in 2017.
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Did playing StarCraft help the Spurs win the 1999 title? It’s impossible to say, but there’s no doubt that if it were a best of five StarCraft series, the Spurs still would have won handily.

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About The Author

Bill is a former writer at Dexerto based in Iowa, who covered esports, gaming and online entertainment for more than two years. With the US team, Bill covered Overwatch, CSGO, Influencer culture, and everything in between.