OT: Tim Duncan Retires after 19 NBA seasons
Spurs power forward Tim Duncan has retired after 19 seasons of play.
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/16980885/tim-duncan-san-antonio-spurs-announces-retirement
Although he is extremely boring from a personality standpoint, Tim is considered one of the greatest NBA players of all time.
but there was a decade he was probably the best in the league. I realize his career overlapped that of a lot of other greats, either on the upside or opposite of their career, which might have prevented a universal recognition of this. He will easily be one of the NBA's top 30.
TD's Top 10, easy.
The best power forward ever.
I loved Tim Duncan's game, but I would still take Karl Malone as my starting power forward.
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What you call boring I call classy.
No retirement tour, no gifts and tributes, just a player who played all out until he decided he was done, never seeking the spotlight for himself.
Not just the NBA is sorely lacking for that type of individual in these times, our entire society is.
I enjoyed watching him, and always rooted for him - except in the '05 Finals.
15-time All-Star
Five-time NBA Champion
Two-time MVP
Three-time Finals MVP
Ever since the Spurs drafted Duncan No. 1 overall in 1997, no team in any of the four major sports has had a better win percentage (.710)
For that kind of career, he really doesn't get the acclaim he deserves.
Sadly, I think it's because he is so quiet and "boring." There's nothing flashy about his game or personality, but he is clearly one of the best of all time.
IIRC, he has as many NBA titles as kobe and 1 more MVP award, but does not get the media love like kobe does. Great team player and all around good guy, no issues reported off the court that I recall and no need for a farewell tour!
Who would you rank higher - Tim or Kobe???
Totally different players. Kobe was a one man assassin squad when he was in his prime while Tim was the consumate teammate while also being an elite defender, rebounder and all the scorer you ever needed out of a 4/5. Probably the most underrated superstar of all-time, and it's because he was a guy who never saught the spotlight.
I would pick Tim over Kobe personally because he had the ability to help elevate other player's game while Kobe just wanted you to give him the damn ball.
Tim Duncan has been extremely fortunate to have one of the top 5 coaches all time in Pop. Then his career has been surrounded by possibly the best supporting cast over the past 20 years. Parker and Manu will likely get in the HoF or at least get serious consideration. He started his career with The Admiral. The Spurs front office also built a great bench over the years.
I don't think you'll find any SAS teams that are as awful as what LAL has put on the court the past few years. While celebrating TD, people need to celebrate the work that front office put in to build a great team.
But if you want to look at postseason head-to-head, Kobe had the upper hand there (4-2*). And those mid-2000s series were when both teams I thought were at their strongest. If we're talking about winning basketball games, I'll take Kobe even though TD seems to be a better locker room presence.
*Kobe tore his achilles at the end of the 2013 season and missed the series.
Kobe's personality impacted the team that could be built around him no matter how good or poor the front office was and Kobe did have that Phil Jackson guy for a stretch of his career.
I was watching the 30 for 30 on the Orlando Magic. Shaq said that his desire to be the alpha dog instead of Penny is what prevented that team from sticking together and winning more. He says it shouldn't have mattered but at the time it did.
Tim's personality allowed the likes of David Robinson, Shawn Elliot, Robert Horry, Parker, Manu, Leonard, etc to all want to be part of a winning team because Tim wasn't trying to take all the credit and have everything run through him.
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He was all class and has been my favorite player since he came into the league. I was in the 5th grade then, but he was a guy who went to work each day, no cockyness that you see in all the players today. A good role model. Best PF of all time? Maybe, but at least he was never an A-hole like most NBA stars are.
A great player who did all of his talking with his play on the court. I think he was a better player than some heralded big city stars. He should be a Hall of Fame entry on the first ballot. He was the major reason that the Spurs won so many championships.
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Possibly the best PF of all time.
The Duncan / Robinson combo from 97-03 was nothing but classy, championship post play.
Definitely the best PF of all time
The dude was plain steady. You could count on him game after game, and he just made his team better. Will be considered an all-time great when folks look back on his career.
Plus for all the talk about him being boring, he was pretty funny on the court.
Great player. He will be sorely missed.
No statement, no goodbye tour. Very fitting for Duncan. Insane how dominant he and the Spurs were for his entire 19 year career. Check out these stats from the Spurs press release
Tim Duncan announces retirement pic.twitter.com/b2hzhvkYBf
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpearsESPN) July 11, 2016
for a guy who wanted to be swimmer when he was a kid and only got into basketball after the pool he swam at got destroyed by a hurricane that hit the US Virgin Islands...
I saw him many times lift up his Wake Forest squad and spread fierce enthusiasm vs. his vaunted ACC foes.
He wasn't nearly as "athletically gifted" as many others, only in the sense that you don't consider some of the best footwork the NBA has had to offer a part of being "athletically gifted". He wasn't fundamental in the sense that "fundamental" often means "not as good" in basketball lingo. He was a perfectionist. Despite age, often times nearly impossible to guard because of the variety of footwork and moves he could pull off at any given time. His 10 foot bank shot was a shot of the past but seemed unstoppable when combined with the totallity of his game.
He should, no doubt, be a 1st ballet HOF and known as one of the greatest basketball players of all time. As far as retirements in 2016, people will almost surely remember Kobe as the bigger name, but in my opinion, Duncan was clearly the better player.
1. He is not a power forward. He's a center that people call a power forward so they can say "Best power forward of all time".
2. He was a great player regardless of position. Top 10-15 easy.
3. I don't have a 3, so I like pie.
Even Spurs coach Gregg Popovich seemed to acknowledge the charade on the eve of last year’s playoff series against Utah. When asked who the Spurs would start at center, Popovich said, “Tim Duncan, like we have for the last 15 years.”
Many of those years he was starting along with David Robinson. Around 2006 they started mixing in more "small ball" (small ball at the time meant only one post), but started another true post along with Duncan. Duncan, being able to stretch the floor out to 15 feet or so, was your standard PF type. Then around 2007 they really started moving away from the traditional two post and played Duncan at Center.
So he started at PF early in his career and only went to majority center for the 2nd half of his career. He was a post player, however you want to designate it.
Yes, he was a center with range and perfect fundamentals.
It was made during the strike shortened season and I believe this was Pop just having some fun with the reporters. While I believe TD was more of a hybrid PF/C as opposed to Karl Malone who was a true PF, I'd rather TD over anyone else who played PF.
It is now Kwahi's Leonard's team and has been in the last two season. Kwahi is cut from the same cloth as Tim Duncan. Quiet and unassuming player but is one of the 10 best player in the league.
It seems fitting that Tim Duncan should leave the game as quietly as he entered it, and while he had a career that should garner much acclaim (definitely living up to being a No. 1 pick as he was, or so I recall), he always seemed like the type that was never too invested in that so much as he was the team and the game at hand. He might get a bit of a knock from some for being so understated, but yet he still is arguably among the best of the best in the modern era of basketball.
Sad to see Duncan leave the game. He's one of the best ever. He gets overlooked because of his personality and how he played, but damn he got it done.
No debate about it. This truly is the end of the era of great big men in the NBA. With Tim calling it a career, my two favorite big men ever are now both retired champions. Sad to see Tim hang it up, but it was an absolute pleasure to watch him play for 19 remarkable seasons.
19 years? Why do I remember him being part of the Spurs winners since 1977? Seems like he's been around forever! One of the classic greats, regardless of era. I'd take a team of Tim Duncan personalities over todays one and done trove of players anyday...
What a trio. They were all pretty young then, Juwan being the oldest at ~24. Duncan's 19-year career was the shortest of the three, although he played in many more games and started all but three.
Counting regular season and playoffs,
Tim played 1643 and started 1640
Kobe played 1566 and started 1398.
Juwan 1257 started 913.