Tim Duncan’s true legacy

Before Tim Duncan joined the San Antonio Spurs, they had George Gervin, one of the greatest scorers in NBA history. No championships. The Spurs then got David Robinson, who, in one season playing for the US Naval Academy, had more blocked shots by himself than all but one other team in the entire NCAA. Still no championships. Then came the lean, fleet-footed forward via Wake Forest, and Robinson and the Spurs finally broke through. Things changed, and more than we realized.

Ironically, Duncan entered the NBA a few years after the league jumped into international amateur play feet first via the legendary Dream Team. One only wonders how he would have enhanced the unsurpassed skills of the likes of Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. A big man who could dribble and pass and was absolutely unselfish on a team of the most lethal offensive players on earth? NBA fans would drool at the thought. Sadly, this can only happen in videogame fantasy settings, much like the Ali-Marciano fight simulation.

When we think of the greatest players of all time, reflectively we think about players like Jordan, Bird, Magic and now, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. They made broadcasters’ jobs easier with mountains of highlight reels and buzzer-beaters and all the adrenaline-pumping stuff casual fans have grown up on in an era of instant gratification. But they don’t show the screen or the pass or the defensive stand that led to the breakaway dunk or left the shooter open for the buzzer-beater. They never show the hero’s hero. That is what Tim Duncan has been. He made the play before the big play, the one that, if you rewind the tape just a few seconds more, you would shake your head in disbelief at. Great players say they see a play developing in slow motion, Duncan made the play before that.

Here is Tim Duncan’s true legacy: teams are now creating the culture of greatness with old-fashioned values. Back in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the Boston Celtics won eight straight NBA championships. Red Auerbach was the prime author of that dynasty, and it was because he saw two kinds of greatness in players. He saw players who hated losing more than anything, and also great players willing to come off the bench if the team needed them to. How many Celtics second-stringers would have started for other teams? That was the beginning of creating a team’s culture. For the Celtics of that era, continuity was the key.

The polar opposite of culture, which a lot of teams tried to emulate, was the one the Los Angeles Lakers have always tried to create: find the best big man, and build the team around him. And it doesn’t hurt if the players had a splash of flash in them either. Whereas the Celtics prided themselves on their no-nonsense, workaday style, the Lakers preferred to high-step into the sunset as they won championships. After decades of falling short to Boston, LA won five championships in the 1980’s, two more than the Celts in that decade.

Then, of course, the rules changed again, when Michael Jordan came along. The center whom you built a team around no longer needed to be a center. But now he also demanded to be given approval of the players who would play alongside him, to the point of calling them his supporting cast. That led us to the Bryants and Jameses of this era. Find a great talent, accommodate his whims, and he’ll win you championships. And it has worked, to a certain degree.

Yet there is another culture, one that the San Antonio Spurs have been promulgating for almost two decades now. Find a great player who is also a great human being, and build the team around him. In his entire career with the Spurs, Duncan has definitely compiled enviable numbers. Only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Robert Parish have probably played longer, very few players have stockpiled the stats that Duncan has, and few ever will. But here is the difference. In the more recent, Jordan-bred formulas, teams have leaped into dazzling championship runs, then faded. Others have spurted to the top, then were unable to sustain the greatness when players wanted more money or more credit or more touches. So why has San Antonio won five NBA titles in the Duncan era, and posed a constant threat to the other teams, even in the tougher Western Conference?

The reason is simple. Duncan brought with him a culture, one of unselfishness and humility. He never did victory dances, never sought to embarrass an opponent, never cursed or threw a tantrum. And the Spurs as an organization responded by surrounding him with players of character. Even if San Antonio had few highlight reel moments, they won. Even though they were considered boringly efficient, they won. Even if they had been branded as old for the last decade, they won. And Gregg Popovich took care of his players. At one point a few years ago, no Spurs player had been on the team less than three years. In recent seasons, they added an old veteran who had no ego and no bad habits to the line-up as a back-up plan in the playoffs, even someone like Tracy McGrady, who was less proficient offensively, but still good for amazing runs in the playoffs, and someone who wanted a championship before ultimately retiring.

If one were to look at how some franchises are now building their teams, you will see a pattern. Of course, the scramble for the next phenom will always be there; it makes a coach’s life much easier. But teams are on the market for Spurs who played alongside Duncan. Other teams in the Midwest are looking for great people who are also great athletes. And the Golden State Warriors traded away their top scorer in 2012 to build a winning tradition around first one, then two shooters whose character proved to be worth more than their NBA fathers’ pedigree. These are the effects of Tim Duncan that will leave a lasting impression on the NBA, more than any dunk that will flash by and be forgotten by almost everyone.

That is Tim Duncan’s true legacy.