To be the best, you do not have to be flashy like Julius Irving. You don’t have to be loud like Shawn Kemp, and certainly, don’t have to be cool like Chris Webber. To be the best, you must be great and Tim Duncan personified greatness due to of one thing… Results.
Sunday night, after the San Antonio Spurs defeated the New Orleans Pelicans 113-100, Duncan became the eighth Spur in the history of the franchise to have his jersey retired in the rafters. Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and head coach, Greg Popovich spoke highly of Duncan. It was very emotional, that even Pop couldn’t contain himself after shedding a tear and then stomping the ground to pull himself together. Those are results that don’t get put on a stat sheet. If you can cheer up a player after a horrendous play that led to a playoff loss, like Duncan did Ginobili, or make Pop show any emotion other than angry, then you deserve to be called the best.
No doubt that Tim Duncan is the greatest San Antonio Spur of all-time. Understandable, that David Robinson and George Gervin are former Spurs, but then that’s when we go back to results. The results say that Duncan is the franchise leader in points, rebounds, blocks, and games. The results also say that Duncan owns the most NBA Most Valuable Player awards as a Spur, most NBA Finals MVP awards as a Spur, and has been there during all five championship seasons. The list goes on and on when it comes to results that make Duncan the greatest Spur of all-time, but what does that say about his standing as the all-time greatest power forward in the game of basketball.
What makes Tim Duncan the greatest power forward of all time is consistency. He averaged more than 20 points a game for his first eight seasons and it slowly decreased because Timmy is such a good guy that he passed the torch of a scorer to guys like Ginobili, Parker, and Kawhi Leonard. Duncan’s rebound game has been strong for all his career, even with David Robinson, Tiago Splitter, and LaMarcus Aldridge sharing with boards with him. The “bland man” averaged close to 11 rebounds in his 20-year journey. He is the last first overall draft pick to come out as a senior in college and didn’t disappoint. He averaged over 50% from the field for half his career. That is impressive. The lowest field goal percentage Duncan ever had was in his 2005-2006 season where he averaged 48%. That’s consistency and no one has done it better than Timmy.
The Spurs organization has been blessed with the gem which is Tim Duncan. The city of San Antonio will surely miss him, but Duncan has left the Spurs with wonderful gems that won’t leave fans weeping that much. The Spurs currently have six all-stars on the team. A mixture of young and veteran players that are championship contenders. Of course, the Spurs have the greatest gem of all, Greg Popovich. The only thing the Spurs lack is number 21.
