March 23

March 23 is the 82nd day of the year (83rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 283 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events

National Basketball Association

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America, and is widely considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world. It has 30 franchised member clubs (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada), and is an active member of USA Basketball (USAB), which is recognized by FIBA (also known as the International Basketball Federation) as the national governing body for basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the four major North American professional sports leagues. NBA players are the world's best paid sportsmen, by average annual salary per player.

The league was founded in New York City on June 6, 1946, as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). The league adopted the name National Basketball Association on August 3, 1949, after merging with its rival National Basketball League (NBL). The league's several international as well as individual team offices are directed out of its head offices located in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue in New York City. NBA Entertainment and NBA TV studios are directed out of offices located in Secaucus, New Jersey.

San Antonio Spurs

The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio, Texas. They are part of the Southwest Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

The Spurs are one of four former American Basketball Association teams to remain intact in the NBA after the 1976 ABA–NBA merger and the only former ABA team to have won an NBA championship. The Spurs' five NBA championships are the fourth most in history behind only the Boston Celtics (17), Los Angeles Lakers (16), and Chicago Bulls (6). The Spurs currently rank first among active franchises for the highest winning percentage in NBA history, and are the only team in the NBA with a tied or better head-to-head regular season record against every active NBA franchise.

In their 38 NBA seasons since 1976–1977, the Spurs have won 20 division titles. They have made the playoffs in 24 of the last 25 seasons (since 1989–1990) and have missed the playoffs four times since entering the NBA; they have not missed the playoffs in the 18 seasons since Tim Duncan was drafted by the Spurs in 1997. With their 50th win in the 2014–2015 season, the Spurs extended their record for most consecutive 50+ win seasons to 16 (the 1998–99 season was shortened to 50 games because of a lockout and based on their win percentage of .740, would have easily surpassed 50 wins in an 82-game season, and thus extend the record by 2 more seasons). Thus, since the 1997–98 season, the Spurs have had 18 consecutive seasons with a winning percentage of .610 or greater during the regular season which is also an NBA record. Only the team's current head coach, Gregg Popovich, who had been the team's general manager before replacing Bob Hill in 1996, has had a longer tenure with the Spurs.

Miami Heat

The Miami Heat is an American professional basketball team based in Miami, Florida. The Heat compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. They play their home games at the American Airlines Arena in Downtown Miami. The team owner is Micky Arison, who also owns cruise-ship giant Carnival Corporation. The team president and de facto general manager is Pat Riley, and the head coach is Erik Spoelstra. The mascot of the team is Burnie, an anthropomorphic fireball.

Formed in 1988 as an expansion franchise, the Heat have won three league championships (in 2006, 2012 and 2013), five conference titles and 11 division titles. From February 3 to March 27, 2013, the Heat won 27 games in a row, the second-longest streak in NBA history (after the 1971–72 Los Angeles Lakers' 33 wins). In 2016, Forbes valued the Heat at $1.3 billion as the tenth most valuable among NBA franchises.

The Heat are not related to the Miami Floridians, an ABA team in the early 1970s, although the Heat have occasionally paid tribute to the older franchise by wearing a replica version of the Floridians' uniforms for the NBA's "Hardwood Classics Nights" during the 2005–06 and 2011–12 seasons.

San Antonio

San Antonio (/ˌsænænˈtoʊni.oʊ/ Spanish for "Saint Anthony"), officially the City of San Antonio, is the seventh most populated city in the United States of America and the second most populated city in the state of Texas, with a population of 1,409,019. It was the fastest growing of the top 10 largest cities in the United States from 2000 to 2010, and the second from 1990 to 2000. The city is located in the American Southwest, the south–central part of Texas, and the southwestern corner of an urban region known as the Texas Triangle.

San Antonio serves as the seat of Bexar County. Recent annexations have extended the city's boundaries into Medina County and, though for only a very tiny area near the city of Garden Ridge, into Comal County. The city has characteristics of other western urban centers in which there are sparsely populated areas and a low density rate outside of the city limits. San Antonio is the center of the San Antonio–New Braunfels Metropolitan Statistical Area. Commonly referred to as Greater San Antonio, the metropolitan area has a population of over 2.3 million based on the 2014 US Census estimate, making it the 25th-largest metropolitan area in the United States and third-largest in the state of Texas. Growth along the Interstate 35 and Interstate 10 corridors to the north, west and east make it likely that the metropolitan area will continue to expand.