The greatest power forward in the history of professional basketball—not a modest description for such a modest competitor—turned 40 in April, and despite his 7-foot height and two decades of mileage in the NBA, he’s maintained a modicum of his best form. He scored an efficient 19 points Thursday night, capping the 19th season of a career that has seen him average 19 points per game.
There is no better way to describe Tim Duncan, one of the sport’s most reliable players, except to say that he is proof the word reliable is no disrespect. Reliability, consistency: Those qualities will enshrine him in memory as a model, hardly imitable for anyone who believes that around-the-clock practice and execution of the basics can produce excellence. (They’ll enshrine him in the NBA Hall of Fame, too.)
You could see he was trying to do it one more time Thursday, his sprightly San Antonio Spurs rallying but still down 11 points late in an elimination playoff game against the younger Oklahoma City Thunder. You could tell he was upset about his age when he was blocked by a man 14 years his junior and his face said he had nothing left, at least on this night. Despite trailing by 28 points just a basket of minutes prior, a mountainous climb even by NBA standards, his crew scrapped and maintained its energy and was on the verge of making the Thunder rain nervous sweat when Serge Ibaka, a 6-foot, 10-inch pure athlete, floated in the air long enough to swat a layup attempt from Duncan that would have cut the lead to single digits. Duncan tumbled to the floor, rose frustrated, and watched the Thunder’s Russell Westbrook storm down the hardwood and find Kevin Durant for a game-sealing slam dunk.
Duncan, ever the stoic, said after the game that he hadn’t determined if it was his last one. “I’ll get to that after I get out of here and figure out life. That’s it,” he said.
He would return next year to one of the league’s four best teams, which won 67 of 82 regular season games this year and was outdone only by the defending champion Golden State Warriors. The thing is that any team in any year in history would have been topped by Golden State in the 2015-16 season—it posted a record of 73-9, the winningest ever, and is in the middle of a campaign to match the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls (72-10) as perhaps the best team of all-time.
That’s a tough clip to maintain. It’s not inconceivable that the Spurs could track the Warriors down, as the team’s front office shrewdly built a bridge to a competitive future by developing and retaining one of the sport’s best players, 24-year-old Kawhi Leonard, and pairing him with 30-year-old All-Star Lamarcus Aldridge. Duncan is clearly a member of the supporting cast now; the same goes for his long-time running mates Tony Parker (33) and Manu Ginobli (38), with whom Duncan has won more games than any trio ever.
It’s all icing from here. But it’s been that way since San Antonio toppled the Miami Heat for the NBA title two years ago, a resounding victory against the league’s glamour team of superstars, including LeBron James. It would have been a fitting end.
If it wasn’t then, and it wasn’t last year, when the Spurs lost an epic 7-game series to the Los Angeles Clippers, why would it be now? After all, Duncan just keeps winning.
