Oh, we long since gave up interest in national respect. The casual fan doesn't like the Spurs for the same reason that 4-year-olds like Kool-Aid better than Bordeaux. Some hardcore fans denigrate the Spurs because of the predominance of foreign players on the team. Other denizens of the game feel that personality and individual expression are supposed to be as much a part of the game as rebounding and passing, so they don't much like the Spurs either.
So the Spurs are left as the team of basketball geeks, and of foreign countries. That's fine.
Of course, Suns fans would love to convince themselves that America will forever hate the Spurs because Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw jumped off the bench. Well, America was irritated that the Suns lost for a bit the same way some people get upset when the pretty girl who can't necessarily sing that well gets voted off American Idol. But nobody cares anymore. America is unlikely to sustain enough interest in the Spurs to dislike them for any length of time.
San Antonio itself has an inferiority complex because it is considered poorer and less sophisticated than other major cities in Texas, and so its citizens tend to overreact to perceived slights. This is different from the Phoenix inferiority complex, in which everybody wishes they were from Los Angeles.
Luckily, I'm sufficiently arrogant that I don't have to worry about inferiority complexes. I just figure that the Spurs are an acquired taste.
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