Tim Duncan - The Quiet Giant
If the NBA really wanted to clean up its image, turn over a new leaf from a era filled with blinged-up swatches, booming glocks and booze, an era where the NBA seemed like a live-action hedonistic rap show (not entirely true, but to David Stern it was), then instead of instituting a communist edict of a dress code, they should have turned to the best player in their sport. No, not LeBron and his entourage, not Kobe and his alleged rapings, and no not Shaq and his superman persona (although as a back-up Shaq would have been better than the dress code). Dwyane Wade comes close, but the man in question has been around for 12 years, plodding around the desert Alamo outpost of San Antonio, working magic night in and night out for the entire decade. Tim Duncan, the greatest power forward in NBA history, is the best NBA player of the last decade, the most important one and the cleanest one. Why that triangular equation never transformed into marketability for a league that was dying for a wholesome superstar is more an indictment on the NBA's inability to function, not a shot at Duncan. Tim Duncan's glory days are past. His team will probably lose 30 games or more for the first time in his entire CAREER. He may never hold the Larry O'Brien trophy again. He doesn't need all those things, he needs the recognition he deserves. LeBron can wait, one of the 10 best NBA players ever is still here.
Since Tim Duncan was drafted #1 by San Antonio before the 1997-1998 season, he has been in the league for 12 full years. In this time, he has been an All-NBA first team player 9 times. All-NBA Defense first teamer 9 times. Twice he has won the MVP of the league, and twice more finished as the runner up (to Shaq and then KG). Again, he has never played on a team that lost more than 29 games (until probably this year). He has been to the finals four times, and won all of them, three times winning the Finals MVP. Yet, with all these numbers, including a five year stretch from the 1999-2000 season to the 2003-2004 season where he had 23 points, 12 rebounds 3 assists and 2 blocks per game each year, there is so much more that makes Duncan the best NBA player this decade. He won, and he was the sole reason.
Kobe might have as many Championships, but Shaq will fight anyone to the death if they say that Shaq was not the primary force on all three of those teams. Wade may have carried a team, but he still had Shaq at a first-second all-nba level. In the four years that Tim Duncan won NBA titles, he had a total of two third team all-NBA players (Robinson in 1998-1999 and Parker in 2006-2007) on his side. That is it. Yet, there was no better franchise all decade around him. They guy who passed in and out of San Antonio are a laundry list of average (Mario Elie, Avery Johnson, Sean Elliot, Stephen Jackson, Nazr Mohammad, Fabricio Oberto, Malik Rose, Speedy Claxton, Steve Smith, Devin Brown, Rasho Nesterovic, Brent Barry and Francisco Elson all played major minutes on the three title teams in the 2000s) sprinkled with some good players (Parker, Ginobili, Horry, Bowen). However, he was really the power-forward form of Steve Nash. In his and the Suns prime, Nash made Leandro Barbosa, Boris Diaw, Jim Jackson and Quentin Richardson into good team players. The only difference with Duncan is he took lesser talent, and won titles. Sure, Duncan was handed one of the 10 best coaches in league history in Gregg Poppovich, but coaching only goes so far in the NBA. The NBA is about players. Other than a hockey goalie, no other sport has a player that can win titles basically by himself than NBA players, and no one did this like Duncan.
If you needed a rebound, he got it. If you needed a defensive stop, he got it. If you needed a pick, he got it. Hell, if you needed a last minute three-pointer to tie the game and kill off the last vestiges of a critically-acclaimmed offensive show, he got it. Look at these games that he posted in critical playoff games. In 2003, Duncan had a seven game stretch against the Lakers and Mavs in the playoffs where he had these games: 27-14-5 (points-rebounds-assists), 37-16-4, 40-15-7, 32-15-5, 34-24-6, 21-20-7, 23-15-6. To cap it off, he put up a 32-20-6 in Game 1 of the finals, and in Game 6, to close out a good Nets team, Duncan fell two blocks shy of a quadruple-double with a 21-20-10-8 (blocks). That was Duncan's peak, in the 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 seasons. He could do no wrong. He did every single thing and NBA player is supposed to. When the Spurs needed Tim to drop 30, he dropped 40. When they needed him to take out Shaq, he did. He was the best defender of the past decade too, mercilessly helping his four teammates, turning the Spurs into the best team defense in the league year after year, with a revolving door of players around him. The fulcrum was Duncan. He stood strong, as the tides of ebbs and flows around him thrashed. He never wavered, he never got emotional or angry. He made the best with foreign players and cheap veterans. He was San Antonio. He was the most dominant force in the NBA.
What killed Duncan was his quiet persona. Duncan denied the spotlight more than he shied away. He didn't want to please anybody with his words or his jokes (he is supposedly a funny locker-room guy. Somehow that is more believable than the supposed Belichick jokester that people sware exist). He pleases with his play, his never ending desire to win and win alot. Duncan must hate what the Spurs are now, another run of the mill 45-50 win team, one that will always make the playoffs, never really challenge. That is what happens when you win 53-58-58-60-57-59-63-58-56-54 games in the last 10 years. That is what happens when you win three titles in five years, including beating down the James Cavs to a pulp in 2007. That is what happens when you exhude excellence, when you rise to the challenge night after night. Tim Duncan may never win the title again. Doesn't matter that much. He's already got four the hard way, winning without the help of another hall of famer (Robinson was a shell of himself in 2003). Other than the 2004 Pistons (who had 5 all-stars but no likely hall of famers) there probably was not a team in recent memory that won a title without at least two hall of famers as key contributers. Duncan won 3 without one, winning in every way from sweeping the Cavs to grinding out a 7-game series win over Detroit.
The NBA is now LeBron's world, a world where a stat-compiler that gets bailed out by refs and touches the ball on every play, allowing for assist totals that guys like Kobe or Wade would get if they demanded the ball that much. The NBA landscape has changed. The best true team is probably Denver, not relying on one player. The Duncan era is over. It is all about flash. Evidently David Stern has given up on making the NBA into a gentleman's game. Stern so much wanted a classy wholesome image for the league. He tried everything, and little did he know that the classiest superstar in recent memory (a philanthropic, polite giant of a man), who doubled as the best power forward in NBA history, was right there in from of him. Remember the Alamo, sure, but remember Duncan as well.
