Tim Duncan

Basketball Player

• Born: April 25, 1976
• Birthplace: Christiansted, St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands

Basketball player

Duncan is considered one of the top basketball players, and specifically one of the best power forwards, of all time. During a long career with the San Antonio Spurs, he quietly established a reputation for consistent, fundamentally sound play.

Areas of achievement: Philanthropy; Sports: basketball

Early Life

Timothy Theodore Duncan was born to Ione and William Duncan on April 25, 1976, in the town of Christiansted on the island of St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. His mother, a midwife, and his father, a mason, had three children, of whom Duncan was the only son. Duncan initially began participating in sports as a swimmer.

By the time he entered his teenage years, Duncan was noted for his ability to swim the 50-, 100-, and 400-meter freestyle events and became a top performer in his age group. In 1989, however, Hurricane Hugo badly damaged the Olympic pool that Duncan used for swimming. He switched to swimming in the ocean but was discouraged by his fear of sharks. Seeking a new athletic outlet, he was encouraged by his brother-in-law to try basketball.

Before his fourteenth birthday, Duncan’s mother received a diagnosis of breast cancer. Before she died, she made him promise that he would earn a college degree.

Life’s Work

Duncan threw himself into basketball, and by the time he was a senior in high school he was averaging twenty-five points per game. However, the US Virgin Islands were not considered a hotbed of basketball talent, and Duncan failed to gain widespread recruitment, even though he was nearly seven feet tall.

Dave Odom, then the coach at Wake Forest University (WFU), recognized Duncan’s potential and was able to convince him to accept an athletic scholarship to the school. In Duncan’s first game as a freshman, he was held scoreless and did not even attempt a shot. While many could have seen this game as an ominous beginning, it proved to be an aberration. For the rest of the season, his skills continued to improve and he helped the WFU Demon Deacons to a 20–11 record. The team also made the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament, making it to the second round.

Wake Forest prospered over Duncan’s four-year career at the school. He majored in psychology and put his education to use by assessing other players' strengths and weaknesses on the court and otherwise mastering the psychological aspects of competition. His scoring average rose from about ten points a game to almost twenty-one. He also was the team’s leading rebounder, and by his senior year he averaged nearly fifteen per game.

Duncan and the team never were able to capitalize on his talents by winning an NCAA championship, but they did have some tournament success. Duncan was named the Atlantic Coast Conference’s player of the year twice and college basketball’s player of the year in 1997.

Collegiate success made Duncan a strong candidate for a professional basketball career. He had been tempted to enter the National Basketball Association (NBA) as early as 1995, but he stayed in school to uphold the promise he made to his mother. Staying to play in college for his senior year only helped his draft stock, as he was named an All-American for the second year in a row and won the NCAA Player of the Year award. In 1997 the San Antonio Spurs chose Duncan with the first overall pick of the NBA draft.

In San Antonio Duncan shared the frontcourt with David Robinson, another seven-foot player, and the two became known as the "Twin Towers." Their height and skill proved difficult for other teams to counter. Duncan was named rookie of the year and the Spurs made the playoffs, but they were eliminated in the second round. Although the following year was shortened by a league-wide strike, San Antonio was a dominant team and Duncan the focal point as they rolled to an NBA championship, defeating the New York Knicks. Duncan was named the NBA Finals most valuable player (MVP).

The next two years saw the Spurs fail to return to championship form, though Duncan was named a co-MVP of the NBA All-Star game in 2000. Motivated anew, Duncan redoubled his efforts and was named the league’s MVP in 2002 and 2003. In 2003, he led the Spurs to their second NBA championship (defeating the New Jersey Nets) and was again named Finals MVP. Robinson retired at the end of that season, leaving Duncan as the unquestioned leader of the team. Teammates Tony Parker and Manu Ginóbili would develop into a fearsome combination alongside Duncan, and the longstanding trio formed the foundation for San Antonio's ongoing success through the 2000s.

The Spurs continued their dominance with championships in 2005 and 2007, and Duncan won another Finals MVP in 2005. By the end of the 2009–10 season, he had amassed career averages of over twenty-one points and eleven rebounds per game. Despite working with a range of different players on the Spurs from season to season, Duncan remained a consistent leader and veteran presence. For several subsequent years the team experienced steady success in the regular season, often winning their division, only to fall short in the playoffs, including a loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2011–12 Western Conference Finals and a tense defeat by the Miami Heat in the 2012–13 NBA Finals in seven games.

Having signed a new contract with the Spurs in 2012, Duncan was determined to win another championship. During the 2013–14 season he helped lead the Spurs to a league-leading sixty-two wins in the regular season and make their way back to the NBA Finals. There they faced the Heat in a rematch of the previous year's championship series. Duncan and the Spurs had their revenge as the soundly defeated Miami 4–1 to secure their fifth Finals trophy. By this time Duncan was one of basketball's elder statesmen, becoming only the second player to win a championship in three different decades. Though his offensive performance had declined somewhat he remained a skilled player capable of breakout performances, and his value as a leader was unquestioned.

In 2015 the Spurs were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round. Later that year Duncan signed a two-year deal to remain in San Antonio. Even as his performance declined sharply and he was largely confined to the bench, the Spurs team he had helped to shape for years remained dominant, reaching the playoffs once again in the 2015–2016 season. By 2016 the Spurs had won at least fifty games in every season of Duncan's career except the strike-shortened 1998–99 campaign, and Duncan had become only the third player ever to win at least one thousand games.

Before the 2016–17 season Duncan announced his retirement as a player. In recognition of his great contributions to the Spurs, the team retired his jersey in December 2016. Duncan maintained close connections to the franchise, often working out with players at the team's practice facility, and in 2019 he was officially added as an assistant coach. In March 2020 he even filled in as acting head coach during an absence of legendary Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. However, Duncan stepped down from his assistant position after the 2019–20 season. Meanwhile, in April 2020 it was announced that he would be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, though due to the COVID-19 pandemic the official ceremony was not held until May 2021.

Significance

Never a flashy or outspoken player, Duncan made his name through technical excellence, shrewd intelligence, and remarkable consistency. Though some onlookers considered his game boring compared to flashy superstars like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, Duncan used his laid-back demeanor and psychological insight to his advantage, becoming San Antonio's undisputed leader. The Spurs' five championships and sustained regular season success during his years on the team are testament to his abilities as a scorer, defender, and teammate. Some observers consider him the best power forward ever to play the game, one of the most versatile players ever, and one of the greatest players of his generation or even all time. A two-time league MVP, three-time NBA Finals MVP, five-time NBA champion, Rookie of the Year, and fifteen-time All-Star, among many other accomplishments, he was a lock for the Hall of Fame. Duncan also made a name for himself outside of basketball with philanthropic efforts through his charity, the Tim Duncan Foundation, and other organizations, focusing especially on health awareness and research initiatives.

Bibliography

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Crothers, Tim, and Manny Millan. “Slam Duncan.” Sports Illustrated 83, no. 23 (November 27, 1995): 78. Print.

Lynch, Andrew. "Why Tim Duncan is the Greatest NBA Player of This Generation." Fox Sports. Fox Sports Interactive Media, 15 Apr. 2016. Web. 19 Apr. 2016.

Price, S. L. “The Quiet Man.” Sports Illustrated 99, no. 23 (December 15, 2003): 66-80. Print.

Roselius, J. Chris. Tim Duncan: Champion On and Off the Court. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow, 2006. Print.

"Tim Duncan." Basketball Reference, www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/duncati01.html. Accessed 21 July 2021.

Wright, Michael C. "Humble, Hard-Working Tim Duncan Followed Unorthodox Path to Hall of Fame." NBA, 12 May 2021, www.nba.com/news/tim-duncan-hall-of-fame-2021-profile. Accessed 21 July 2021.

Zillgitt, Jeff. "Tim Duncan Was One of the Greatest Power Forwards in NBA History, But He Won't Tell You About It." USA Today, 12 May 2021, www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/spurs/2021/05/11/tim-duncan-best-forwards-he-wont-tell-you/5035526001/. Accessed 21 July 2021.