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San Antonio Spurs fans are looking for signs.
With the city's first NBA Finals appearance in 12 years now just hours away, some see them in Victor Wembanyama's dominant playoff run. Others point to the young team growing around him. And increasingly, some are taking their cues from a corgi known online as Air Corgi.
The viral dog has attracted attention after correctly predicting every game of the Spurs' seven-game Western Conference Finals victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder. Now Air Corgi is predicting a Spurs victory over the New York Knicks in seven games.
Air Corgi has built a sizable social media following by predicting the outcomes of sporting events. The corgi's online persona includes basketball-inspired nicknames such as "Steph Furry" and "Fluffy Mamba."
To make a prediction, Air Corgi boops an inflatable basketball down a staircase toward hoops marked with competing teams' logos. The basket the ball lands in determines the winner.
Before the Western Conference Finals, Air Corgi predicted that the Spurs and Thunder would need all seven games to decide the series. The corgi also picked the winner of each game in order, accurately forecasting San Antonio's path to the NBA Finals.
The prediction has made Air Corgi an internet celebrity among basketball fans and the latest in a long tradition of animals pressed into service as sports forecasters.
Sports fans have long searched for omens in unusual places. During the 2010 World Cup, a German octopus named Paul became an international sensation after correctly predicting the winners of multiple matches. Zoos and aquariums have periodically enlisted animals ranging from elephants and camels to penguins and sea lions to make picks for the Super Bowl, World Series and other major sporting events.
Air Corgi is simply the latest name on that list. Spurs fans hope history repeats itself one more time.
