Before Peter M. Holt bought a controlling stake in the San Antonio Spurs in 1996 at a reported valuation of $76 million, there was serious doubt about whether the team would stay in the city much longer.

The Spurs’ home arena, the Alamodome, was a multipurpose facility better suited for football than basketball, built in 1993 as part of a failed mission to bring an NFL team to San Antonio. The Spurs’ leadership was also fragmented, after longtime owner Red McCombs had sold the team for $75 million the same year to a consortium of more than two dozen local investors and corporate entities in an effort to keep the Spurs in the city in the near term.

Holt, now 77, brought a sense of security, taking charge as a San Antonio-based businessman and heir to the Caterpillar construction equipment fortune, but not even the Spurs’ most optimistic fans could have expected the stability and prosperity the franchise was about to enjoy.

Under the Holt family’s stewardship, San Antonio has won five NBA championships, more than any other NBA team over the last three decades except the Los Angeles Lakers, who have six. And the Spurs are currently vying for a sixth of their own in this year’s NBA finals (although they are facing a 3-1 deficit against the New York Knicks heading into Saturday night’s Game 5 and will have to win the next three in a row to secure the crown).

Just as impressive, the Spurs have built their dynasty in one of the NBA’s smallest media markets, operated by a family that has been content to remain far more anonymous than most of its peers in sports ownership. Holt’s son, Peter J. Holt, 39, took over as the........

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