Getting Tim Duncan was the greatest thing that could have ever happened to the Spurs. Everything they are is from him. Duncan turned one of the most chaotic organizations in the league into the most stable. In the 7 years or so before Duncan the team went from Larry Brown to Bob Bass to Jerry Tarkanian to John Lucas to Bob Hill to Gregg Popovich coaching the team, and Pop was viewed as nothing more than a stop gap until the team could hire a real coach. Tim Duncan got a new arena built when the team had no hope of staying in San Antonio without it. I know teams always say that but back in the 90s I used to go to lots of Spurs games basically for free in the upper deck, as the Alamodome was a horrible basketball arena and the team couldn't sell season tickets because in an arena of 35,000 there was never a time you couldn't get a ticket even when Chicago came to town. The Spurs would always run promotions where if you brought a Coke can and turned it in you'd get in free, or for $3 or something crazy like that. I'm serious, I went to a couple of games where I just bought a Coke before getting on the bus, drank it, and turned the can in for an upper deck ticket at the dome. Even in the 99 WCF vs Portland I only payed $16.50 to sit in great seats in the lower deck and my Finals tickets were only $50 (and much nicer lower level seats). In that kind of arena there was no way the Spurs could have been profitable long term and Duncan won them a title and got their arena vote passed that summer to keep them from moving to New Orleans, St Louis, or Anaheim (all three were coming really hard after the Spurs at the time with new arenas).
I remember watching Duncan's first playoff game and he had four points at the half and I was thinking to myself "shit, maybe Duncan's just not a big game player." And then in the second half he singlehandedly took the game over, embarrassing Antonio McDyess and Hot Rod Williams. Kevin Harlan was going nuts calling the game for TNT:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB7XD8km7L0
And all of a sudden I realized the team was going to win titles with this guy. Even though they lost to the hated Jazz in 5 in the next round you just knew Duncan had put them really close to a title. And then to finally win one the next year. When this commercial came on in the first commercial break after they clinched it was the first time I had ever cried over sports (10 minute, 52 second mark):
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7vym1BcBbQ&t=10m52s
When I first started going to games people there would be people sleeping in the stands, you'd see people wearing bags on their heads, the only thing of note our hot new rookie first round pick did was crash his Mercedes at 100 mph. I never imagined the Spurs actually going all the way. I spent the night at the Alamodome twice to get tickets to Game 1 & 2 and then Games 6 & 7 (though no one figured 6 and 7 would be played, and they weren't). The atmosphere was crazy there because Spurs fans were used to being a laughingstock of the league. We were the soft team, the guys who could win 50 games in the season but who would always flame out to Utah, Phoenix, Portland, and Houston once the postseason rolled around. I still remember fans shutting down I-37 for hours to celebrate the title about 30 minutes after clinching.
In 2000 with a couple of weeks left in the season everything came crashing down one night in Sacramento. Duncan tore his meniscus and all of a sudden not only there goes the repeat, but is Duncan ever going to be the same. This was the same injury that wrecked the careers of Chris Webber and Brandon Roy. And there was tremendous pressure to rush Duncan back, I mean you're trying to repeat, he's a free agent in the summer and you have no idea if he's coming back, and Duncan told Pop he was playing. And Pop told him to fuck off, I don't care if you walk in the summer, I'm not risking your career on one postseason.
Duncan came back and lost the little amount of lift he had before it, but the guy is a monster in the gym and somehow returned a much better defender in 2000-01. He went from being extremely overrated defensively before (his defensive rep was more reflected glory from Robinson's brilliance) to an elite post defender that year.
It's funny that Duncan is going to have his Hall of Fame ceremony overshadowed by Kobe's now. He hates that kind of stuff anyways. I went to the game when he got his first MVP trophy in 2002 and he just held it up really quickly and walked to the bench to get ready for the game, like he was embarrassed any hardware other than the Larry O'Brien trophy.
2003 is when we really saw Tim become a leader. Robinson couldn't lead the team from the bench in street clothes for seemingly half the season as his body was breaking down. And Duncan finally got his wish of being able to be point forward a bit. He always wanted to be Magic Johnson, and led the break a lot that season. I think he played his finest game that year, dropping 37 and 16 on Shaq to beat the Lakers by 28 on their home floor to eliminate them in what was effectively the championship clinching game. I remember Tom Tolbert saying he was playing around the world on the Lakers calling that game.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_iN6qwvoS8
Then to clinch the title vs New Jersey with a statline of 21/20/10/8 to close the greatest season of his career.
I still remember his 40 points in Game 7 vs Dallas in 06, dragging the Spurs from down 20 to a tie game with 30 seconds left before Ginobili hit a three to take a 3 point lead and then to have Manu give it all back with a stupid foul on Nowitzki. A lot of people kill LeBron for his cramping but the same happened to Duncan in OT in Game 7 and he got dominated by DeSagana Diop those last couple of minutes. That was a rough ending to the season. So of course it was amazing to see them come and win the title in 07 after such a bitter defeat.
By 2010 that bone on bone in his bad knee from the meniscus injury in 2000 was killing him and it looked like retirement was near. Pop had to come up with a game plan that didn't revolve around dumping the ball to Duncan on the left block all the time and he moved to becoming a supporting player like David Robinson had to do when Duncan came. Ever since about 2010 you would watch Spurs games and Duncan would just be dragging one leg constantly, Bill Simmons would always write about it and how he couldn't believe he was playing on one knee.
Fast forward to the 2013 Finals Game 6 and Duncan has 25 at the half and there is nothing Miami can do to stop him. They have built up a 13 point lead going into the fourth (it may have been just ten, I think Chalmers hit a three at the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth to spark a run). Manu Ginobili keeps throwing the ball to LeBron, Kawhi Leonard misses a free throw that would ice a title, then Ginobili misses a free throw that would have iced a title, Boris Diaw misses a rebound that would have iced a title. But after the Spurs lose in Game 7 the media asks Duncan about being so close to a title he says it's all his fault for missing that shot on Battier with a minute left in Game 7. The guy never turned on his teammates even though it was entirely their fault for blowing Game 6, never blew up at Pop for having him on the bench when the Spurs blew those two defensive rebounds that became the LeBron and Ray Allen threes. I felt really bad for him because he really did blame himself for missing that one shot.
Fast forward to 2014 and they have just blown their lead in OKC in Game 6, and the Thunder have forced OT. Now OKC has a four point lead, the crowd is going crazy, the Spurs have lost all the momentum and no one is hitting shit. Pop starts posting Duncan on the left block against Ibaka and he scores like 7 straight points. At 38 years old Tim Duncan is still the rock the Spurs rely on to bail them out of a dire situation on the road. And then David Aldridge went to interview him after the game and he called his shot and said he was going to win four more game this time unlike last year.
2015 Game 7 in LA and the Spurs are in the same situation. Chris Paul is red hot, Parker and Leonard are giving the Spurs nothing offensively. And Duncan just keeps posting DeAndre Jordan and killing him with turnarounds and baby hooks. It all got overshadowed by the insane bank shot CP3 hit with one second left to clinch the series win, but seeing him drop 27 and 11 on DeAndre at age 39 in a must-win will always be one of my favorite moments of his career.
2016 was never supposed to be Duncan's last. The idea was always that he'd play another couple of years once Aldridge signed. He'd keep dragging that bad knee up the floor every night. He has this enormous knee brace with a Punisher logo that you'll only see if you come to the game an hour or two before while everyone is shooting around. By gametime it's covered in a sleeve so it's not as noticeable. And he was having a huge start to the season, it was the best he'd looked since 2013. But by January his good knee was giving him problems, and once it never responded to the 6-7 games rest he got I knew it was it. He could play on one really bad knee but not two. He was a shell of himself January and beyond, just missing bunnies at the rim because he could get no lift whatsoever. Facing elimination he somehow managed one really solid and efficient 19 point effort in the closeout. Duncan got the Spurs a good lead in the first that turned into a 34 point deficit in no time once David West came in to replace him. He dragged them back to within 9 until he couldn't get enough elevation to go over Serge Ibaka with about 3 minutes left, and that was game. When Duncan walked off the floor after the final buzzer he held a finger in the air to his parents (RIP) as the OKC crowd cheered him and I knew it was the last time I'd see him wearing that #21 jsersey. What a ride it has been, taking a disaster of a franchise that was ready to leave town and turning them into one of the model franchises in all of sports. Peter Holt, Gregg Popovich, and RC Buford of course all had huge parts in the success of the franchise, but it all started with Tim.
