Eighteen months ago I rode the New York City subway to Brooklyn to see the greatest basketball player of his generation.
There was an odd incongruity in seeing Tim Duncan in the world’s biggest, brightest city. The least shiny superstar in basketball history, Duncan seemed out of place in the house that Jay Z built.
You learn a lot about athletes by seeing them in warm-ups. LeBron James is almost childlike with joy, dancing between shots, mouthing the words to Chris Brown songs. Kobe Bryant was antisocial, on an island taking his shots, rarely mingling with teammates. When he did, it felt forced, and his teammates recoiled a little, almost in fright. Carmelo Anthony has almost no distinctive personality that comes through pre-game, which figures, because as far as stars go, his personality has always lacked distinction.
That night in Brooklyn, Duncan went through his warm-ups exactly how you’d expect him to. He encouraged his teammates, smiled constantly and joked around, before eventually the steely conviction returned to his face.
And he never shot. Instead, he spent the pre-game routine rebounding his teammates’ misses. I didn’t see him take a single shot – he was content to play ball boy for the likes of Patty Mills and Kyle Anderson. It was so Duncan it felt almost scripted.
Somehow, the defending champion Spurs lost that game to Brooklyn, who won 38 games that season. That’s the nature of the NBA – Mirza Teletovic goes 9/13 from the floor for 26 points and you lose on the road.
Duncan didn’t stand out. Of the Spurs, Tony Parker made his mark with his slithery movement around picks and change of pace leans toward the hoop. Kawhi Leonard was an athletic force, someone who seemed to devour the court with his movement in a way that echoed James. Manu Ginobili was sumptuous, a poet and a killer, sliding around the hardwood floor, firing one-handed passes to places we couldn’t have predicted.
Their leader seeped into the background. He dawdled around the court, dragging his legs, his body thin and always upright. He was an old man and he looked like it. By the end of it all, though, he had his 14 points, 17 rebounds and three blocks. Business as usual.
Young Tim Duncan made much more sense. You go back and watch video of the 1999 or 2003 Finals and you see a big man with bounce, with spring in his step, someone who could dunk on you. The jumper looked more fluid and natural with more lift in his legs. He held himself in the air for longer on his fade-aways, and he finished stronger around the hoop. Nothing about the past four years of Duncan has made sense, though, and that’s the Duncan I’ll remember.
By 2013 he was almost all guile. His burst had virtually died, his athleticism expired. He got by on savvy, on intelligence, on altruism. He knew where to position himself on defence to protect the rim and rebound. His passing remained special, and his free throw shooting got better. His post-touches became an exercise in nostalgia, but he eked just enough fouls and points out of them to keep defences honest. He didn’t just ‘get by’, though. To the bitter end he was irreplaceable.
Duncan’s last great, transcendent performance in a victory came in Game 6 of the 2014 Conference Finals in Oklahoma City. In overtime, with Tony Parker out injured, the offence growing stagnant, and a potential Game 7 against Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook looming, Duncan convinced himself it was 2003 again, if only for three precious minutes. He scored seven straight points in OT to carry the Spurs to the Finals, with an array of old school moves and genius drawing of fouls. Old Man Riverwalk, the commentators exclaimed.
Champions are made in victories, but heroes come to life in defeat. You can have your Kyrie Irving Game 7 – I’ll take Draymond Green’s.
The Duncan performances I’ll mostly remember came in defeat. There was his defiant last stand in what turned out to be his final quarter, in another Game 6 in Oklahoma City this past season. There was his performance against the Clippers last year – the only Spur along with Mills who didn’t play scared in that series. In Game 7 of that series, with the Spurs down two with eight seconds left, Duncan went to the line. A career 69.6 per cent free throw shooter in enemy territory, I was petrified for Duncan. He wasn’t.
It felt like there was no chance he wasn’t missing at least one, but they both went down. There was no reason to it – only that he was Tim Duncan. The Spurs lost the game and the series, and Duncan’s 27 points and 11 rebounds in Game 7 were forgotten, overshadowed by a gutsy point guard with a dud hamstring who also put up 27.
My enduring memory of Duncan comes from the greatest game I’ve ever seen. Game 6 2013 Finals. In the first half, Duncan just wanted it more than anyone else. At 37 years old, against James and Dwyane Wade in their primes, he dropped 25 points in the first two quarters and ruined Chris Bosh’s life. He was magnificent. He was historic.
So was James, though, and being nine years younger, James’ greatness had more stamina in the end game. Ray Allen’s shot fell, and Duncan’s heroic performance was consigned to the world of romantic basketball anecdotes. He missed a bunny over Shane Battier in the dying stages of Game 7, slammed his hand on the floor in frustration, and the series was over. The Basketball Gods can only be so cruel, though, and Duncan certainly had built up some equity with them, and he was repaid with a title the following year, one of the greatest championship displays of resilience that the game has seen.
With five titles and more heartbreaking losses than the typical star endures (between the first Miami series, losing as a one-seed to Memphis in 2011, Chris Paul’s 2015 Game 7, Dirk Nowitzki’s and-one in 2006, and Derek Fisher’s 0.4 shot, he’s tasted some bitter, bitter defeats), Duncan has experienced the NBA’s entire spectrum of euphoria and devastation. If you look hard enough, you can see a little of it on his face. But only for a second. Then the stone face returns, loudness is disregarded, and all that matters is what happens next.
If you could have one teammate in NBA history, someone it would be fun to go to work with, who could make you better, who could put you in the best position to win, it would be Tim Duncan. He showed that you don’t need to be a maniac in the vein of Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant to succeed. It’s perfectly OK to be a nice guy – Duncan proved that they don’t always finish last.
The NBA is consumed with noise – with shoe deals, with LeBron’s sub-tweeting, with superstar movement in free agency, with Stephen Curry’s daughter. Duncan stood above all that. He never cared about the noise. All he did was care about the things that really mattered.
In the world’s most star-driven sports league, Duncan never worried about how brightly people thought he shone. That’s why my enduring image of him is in a baggy tracksuit, in a near-empty stadium in New York City, a sneaking smile on his face, rebounding his teammates’ misses.
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