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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781633197374 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 12/01/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| File size: | 30 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Tim Duncan
Team-First Superstar
By J.R. Wilco
Triumph Books LLC
Copyright © 2016 J.R. WilcoAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63319-737-4
CHAPTER 1
THE LEGEND BEGINS
Duncan Arrived at Wake Forest Unheralded, Left a Star
By Bruno Passos
Tim Duncan discovered basketball on the island of St. Croix. He left his biggest mark on the game while in San Antonio with the Spurs. But between those two stops, over four years at Wake Forest University, Duncan made some of his greatest strides as a player, rising from promising freshman to one of the most decorated players the college game had ever seen. It's here that he made excellence a habit.
As a former swimming star with little competitive basketball under his belt by the age of 16, Duncan received interest from just four colleges, including Providence, Hartford, and Delaware State. He also met Wake Forest's coach Dave Odom, who made a trip to St. Croix on the chance recommendation of a former player and recent NBA draft pick, Chris King. While chatting one day, King mentioned to Odom he'd been impressed by a young player he'd seen while conducting basketball clinics in the Virgin Islands with Hornets center Alonzo Mourning. King didn't catch his name and couldn't recall which island he'd seen him on, but said that the kid "had a good game, and was the only player that stood up to Alonzo and me."
Odom eventually found and recruited him, and Duncan arrived at Wake Forest University in the fall of 1993, determined to fulfill the promise to get a college diploma he had made to his mother before she died of breast cancer. He joined a Demon Deacons team that already had junior point guard Randolph Childress (a future draft pick who would earn first-team All-ACC honors that year) but played in a conference dominated by perennial powerhouses Duke and North Carolina.
Odom had expected to redshirt Duncan to allow him to develop his slight frame. But Duncan's performance upon arrival, paired with the unexpected ineligibility of the team's other big men recruits, opened the door for him to play immediately.
It's safe to say things worked out pretty well.
In his freshman season, Duncan averaged 9.8 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 3.8 blocks per game, showcasing his immaculate footwork and high basketball IQ. The Deacons finished third in the ACC, an improvement over the year before, but the future looked even brighter.
The Virgin Islander caught no one by surprise in his sophomore season. He was viewed as one of the country's top NBA prospects entering the year, and he lived up to the billing in every way. Assuming a larger role on the team, Duncan averaged 16.8 points, 12.5 rebounds, 4.2 blocks, and 2.1 assists per game, while winning National Defensive Player of the Year. Wake Forest finished first in the ACC and won the conference tournament, with Duncan and Childress earning first-team All-ACC honors and forming an imposing one-two combination.
No one would have held it against Duncan if he had left Wake Forest that summer for the NBA. Instead he stayed through his junior year and, when he was once again touted as the number-one overall pick the next summer, he decided to stay for his senior year. He was enjoying college, and would not yield to the pressure to cash in on his talent, adamant that we would keep his word to his mother.
Duncan led Wake Forest to two more great seasons — including another conference title — winning ACC Player of the Year twice, Defensive Player of the Year two more times, and the Naismith, Rupp and Wooden awards in his senior year. The same unrelenting excellence that had become his calling card throughout his professional career took shape as he dominated opponents with his unique physical talents and his mastery of the fundamentals.
Meanwhile, Duncan's teammates had grown accustomed to his low-key demeanor and introverted nature. He made numerous connections during his Wake Forest days, but his relationship with senior walk-on Ken Herbst revealed Duncan's thoughtful nature. As Herbst said:
"He sensed my fear of flying and he gave me a shirt that was near and dear to his heart, and it was a 'No Fear' shirt ... Tim always cut off the sleeves of his shirts. So it was more than a tank top, but a T-shirt without the sleeves. He gave me that shirt. I still have that shirt today."
Duncan graduated from Wake Forest as the winningest player in school history, leading the Deacons to a 97-31 record over his four-year career, but the fact that he graduated is what differentiates him from many other NBA superstars of his time. Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett both bypassed college during Duncan's career at Winston-Salem, and the prep-to-pros era was just gaining steam, with Dwight Howard, Amar'e Stoudemire and LeBron James all set to make the jump from high school.
He wasn't the only four-year college player to go number one in the draft (he wasn't even the last, that was Kenyon Martin in 2000), he never led his school beyond the Elite Eight, and he won't go down as the greatest player in NCAA history — although he's probably somewhere in the top 20. The lasting impression from his time at Wake Forest is that, despite how accomplished his college career was, his best still lay ahead of him.
CHAPTER 2MAKING HIS MARK
Duncan Shines Early and Often During His Rookie Season
By Michael Erler
It probably feels inevitable in retrospect that Tim Duncan, the top pick of the 1997 NBA draft and the unanimous winner of the Naismith College Player of the Year Award, the John R. Wooden Award, and the AP Player of the Year, would quickly develop into one of the consistently dominant players in league history. However, he wasn't convinced it would work out that way.
Even though he more than held his own in summer workouts with the legendary David Robinson, who had won the Most Valuable Player award just two seasons before, Duncan still had no pretensions about his place in the league and took the unusual step of volunteering to play in Summer League, something high lottery picks usually skipped at the time.
"I didn't know what to expect in the NBA," Duncan explained to teammate Manu Ginobili on the Champions Revealed interview that the Spurs participated in after winning the 2013-14 title. "I didn't know if I'd be good, or average, or bad or what it was. Right after I got drafted, Pop is like, 'There's Summer [League], do you want to go play?' and I was like, 'Hell, yeah I want to play. I want to get out there and get as much experience as possible.'"
What happened next has turned into one of the most oft-told anecdotes in Spurs lore. Duncan's first attempt of his professional career, a left-handed hook shot, was swatted into the stands by Utah's Greg Ostertag. As the story goes, Gregg Popovich had an immediate quip for his prized rookie, rolling his eyes and saying "Nice shot! ... We're going to be real good this year," only for Duncan to come back right at his coach with "I told you you screwed up drafting me."
Looking back on it years later, Duncan didn't pull any punches on his debut. "I sucked!" he told Ginobili. "I was awful."
He's likely exaggerating for effect (Popovich went on to explain that Duncan blocked Ostertag's shot on the next trip down the floor) and it's telling that it was early in training camp that Popovich and his assistants made the significant decision to flip the roles of their two main big men. It'd be the kid receiving the lion's share of opportunities in the low post, leaving the veteran Robinson to be the "dive man" to clean up on offensive rebounds and through other secondary offensive opportunities from the high post.
To his everlasting credit, Robinson never uttered a peep of complaint over the change in status, and though he couldn't have known it at the time, he was setting an example to his protégé about how to act when the day came where he too would have to surrender offensive responsibility to younger players.
Duncan was as good as advertised almost from the beginning — "I have seen the future and he wears No. 21," none other than Charles Barkley declared after a preseason game against Houston — and he would indeed go on to capture the league's Rookie of the Month award in each month of the season, but he wasn't a 20-point, 10-rebound metronome, not at first.
After a solid 15-point, 10-rebound opening effort in a win at Denver, Duncan was held to a modest nine points and five boards in his home opener against Cleveland, forced to play just 23 minutes due to foul trouble. In fact, Duncan didn't crack 20 points until the seventh game of his career, at Minnesota against future rival Kevin Garnett. Through his first 21 games Duncan only eclipsed the 20-point barrier three times.
Duncan averaged 15.2 points through November, then 19.3 in December, and 19.5 in January. He'd already established himself as a double-double machine by then, racking up 10 of them in his first 20 games and then 15 more in the next 20. He had a season-high 22 rebounds in just his third game.
But it wasn't until February that his scoring really took off. He went on to average 25.7 points that month, 23.8 in March and then 26.9 down the stretch in April. Tentative and conscientious about moving the ball and getting his teammates involved at first, Duncan eventually got comfortable enough to regularly take 18-20 shots a night, and he was constantly expanding his repertoire on the low block, learning what worked against whom.
After losing to Barkley and the Rockets in their first regular season meeting, Duncan and the Spurs were much better in a win the second go-around, and he kept playing better against Shaquille O'Neal and the Lakers every time he faced them.
Mere numbers can't adequately explain Duncan's performances, of course. While he would go on to remain a valuable contributor to the very end, even as a 40-year-old, it's almost hard to remember what a fluid athlete he was early in his career. No, he was never as freakish in terms of foot speed or leaping ability as Robinson — Duncan's made self-disparaging comments about his lack of hops for years — but he could seriously move in his younger days and had the quickness and lateral agility to flummox just about any defender. He was the complete package, the ultimate combination of length, fundamentals and feel. That Duncan had Robinson to spar with every day in practice only hastened his development. He wasn't going to find a tougher defender in the league than the one in his own gym.
Duncan went on to win the league's Rookie of the Year award in a unanimous vote and was named First-Team All-NBA as well as Second-Team All-Defensive, both incredibly rare accolades for a first-year player. He led the Spurs to a first-round upset against the Suns, setting the tone with 32 points in the series opener, but absorbed some harsh lessons from Karl Malone in the Western semifinals as the Spurs went down to the Jazz in five games. Just how quick a study Duncan was would become obvious in his second season.
CHAPTER 3CHAMPS!
Duncan Powers Spurs to First NBA Title, Wins Series MVP
By Jesus Gomez
In a way it's fitting that Tim Duncan and the Spurs' first championship came under strange circumstances. The lockout-shortened season of 1999 was hard on everyone. Michael Jordan retired, leaving a power vacuum. Some of the league's best players showed up out of shape and teams saw big swings in performance. San Antonio started out 6-8 for the year, and coach Gregg Popovich was rumored to be on the hot seat — not exactly the type of performance expected of a championship contender.
In this unpredictable atmosphere, a team that could keep their cool and just play had an edge. Tim Duncan didn't need chaos to be at his best, but he wasn't hindered by it either, which is a key reason why the Spurs raised the banner.
It was a transitional year for the league. The Jazz were hoping to finally get to the "promised land" with Jordan out of the way, the Lakers were shuffling players around in an attempt to find a winning combination, and the Trail Blazers were still a year or two away from contending. The East was weak at the top but had parity. There were bound to be surprises, like an eighth seed reaching the Finals without its best player or an Isaiah Rider-led team taking out everyone's title favorite.
In that context, Duncan's almost metronomic performances stand out even more. He only had a few sub-par showings despite appearing in all 50 games and playing 39 minutes a night, including two instances where he had to play on three consecutive nights, a scheduling necessity when a league has to squeeze what would normally be four months worth of games into three. Duncan's averages of 22 points, 11 rebounds, two assists and two blocks made him a lock for both First Team All-NBA honors and a First All-Defensive team selection. He finished third in MVP voting behind Karl Malone and Alonzo Mourning despite sharing the court with another star that played essentially the same position.
Duncan paced a Spurs team that lacked the offensive firepower to survive bad games from its stars, so they built their identity around a defense that featured two all-time big men defenders. David Robinson was still a force in his own right, but his decline on offense was starting to be noticeable. The Spurs were Duncan's team and they were going to need their sophomore star to perform at his best even more consistently than the most grizzled veterans, under unique circumstances that were throwing off others far more accomplished.
After nabbing the first seed in the Western Conference thanks to owning a tiebreaker over the Jazz, the Spurs faced Kevin Garnett's Timberwolves. Garnett's record-breaking contract was considered to be one of the reasons the lockout happened in the first place but he was worth every penny of the six-year, $126 million deal he signed. Even through the turmoil of the Stephon Marbury trade, Minnesota was dangerous, but the Spurs eliminated them in four games. San Antonio was on a mission.
Waiting for them in the second round were the Lakers. Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant were monsters, combining for 45 points a night. They still couldn't do anything to prevent a Spurs sweep powered by Duncan's 29 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, a steal and two blocks per game. While Robinson couldn't get going on offense, Sean Elliott and Jaren Jackson stepped up to fill the void. In two rounds, the Spurs had taken out two of the best big men in the West and everything pointed towards a power-forward showdown between Duncan and Malone.
Instead, the Blazers upset the Jazz, depriving us of a match-up for the ages and adding more randomness to a season that already had plenty. The series against the Blazers, which ended up being yet another sweep, did not completely lack in drama, providing an indelible moment in that championship run, which we now know as "The Memorial Day Miracle." Elliott shot his way into immortality in Game 2 by hitting a go-ahead three-pointer late in the game to cap a huge comeback before a delirious Alamodome crowd. Duncan, meanwhile, racked up 23 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks to make that moment possible. San Antonio cruised comfortably through the remaining two games when the series shifted to Portland.
Then the Finals came against a surprising Knicks team that clawed its way up from the eighth seed without their best player, Patrick Ewing. The Spurs were obviously expected to beat them, but New York had defied logic and exceeded expectations for three rounds. Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell gave the Knicks a huge edge in talent and athleticism at the wing and San Antonio had to counter with its size advantage inside.
With the Spurs leading the series 3-1, Game 5 in New York was a microcosm of the season: chaotic and wild with unexpected swings but ultimately dominated by the best young player in the league.
The Spurs couldn't buy a bucket early. The Knicks' defensive effort focused on the paint, severely limiting penetration and working to keep Duncan and Robinson from getting deep position. On offense, Houston and Sprewell destroyed Mario Elie and Elliott. The Knicks led for most of the first half, and were able to push their advantage up to eight points. Duncan kept San Antonio in the game by hitting the outside looks that New York allowed, while Robinson feasted on a raw Marcus Camby. Duncan and Robinson combined for 26 of the Spurs' 40 first-half points and after 24 minutes, the Spurs were somehow up two.
Though the Knicks played with increased urgency after halftime, their energy worked against them. They turned the ball over, allowing the Spurs to go on a run in the beginning of the third quarter. But then New York became extremely disruptive, turning to a full court press and gambling for steals, which prevented the Spurs from running their offense. Sprewell caught fire, the Knicks caught up to San Antonio and it seemed like they were going to run away with it, forcing a Game 6. Unfortunately for the Knicks, the Spurs still had Duncan.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Tim Duncan by J.R. Wilco. Copyright © 2016 J.R. Wilco. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
INTRODUCTION,THE LEGEND BEGINS,
MAKING HIS MARK,
CHAMPS!,
BACK ON TOP,
THRICE IS NICE,
DYNASTY,
THE EVOLVING GAME OF TIM DUNCAN,
RESURGENCE,
AN OPEN LETTER TO TIM DUNCAN,
BETTER THAN YOU THINK,
A TRIBUTE TO THE BIG THREE,
PAYBACK!,
REVEALING THE MYSTERIES,
RECORD SETTERS,
BIG FUNDAMENTAL,
THE BOND OF EXCELLENCE,
LEAGUE-WIDE DOMINANCE,
THE PERFECT MATCH,
WABI-SABI,
THE LEGEND ENDS,
A PORTRAIT OF TIM DUNCAN,