It is easy — very easy — to think or say that any argument advocating Tim Duncan’s return for another NBA season is selfish and emotional. That’s undeniable and inescapable.
When a giant of a sport comes closer to the end of a decorated career — a two-decade-long journey which established a remarkably elevated standard of excellence — any columns opposing retirement will be viewed with suspicion by some.
You just want him to stay, others will unavoidably claim.
You just can’t let go of him in your mind, the outsiders will chime in.
You’re not ready to live in an NBA without The Big Fundamental, some will point out, with a considerable degree of truth.
Those assertions can’t really be refuted. There’s no argument against them.
The individual can only try to be as honest as possible in saying that whereas some athletes stay in a uniform too long, past the point of deterioration, other athletes can still make a meaningful contribution after their best days are over.
Such is the case with Tim Duncan. I really do believe he can still help the Spurs in 2017.
One point to realize about Duncan is that as recently as last season, he was… Tim Duncan. Number 21 played well for long stretches of the Spurs-Clippers first-round epic. Smaller but noticeable measures of inconsistency had begun to creep into his game, but Duncan still carried a substantial workload for San Antonio.
This is why Duncan’s career will stack up so favorably against other elites — at his power-forward position, yes, but also among the ranks of the 25 to 50 greatest players in the history of the NBA: The quality of his longevity is extremely rare.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar remained a vital presence on the 1989 Los Angeles Lakers in his final season. In his next-to-last contest, Game 3 of the 1989 NBA Finals against the Detroit Pistons, Kareem scored 24 points and hauled in 13 rebounds. His minutes were reduced to the low 20s that season, but on a roster of racehorses, he didn’t get in the way of the Showtime operation.
The Lakers were rarely better from opening night through the Western Conference playoffs in 1989. They cruised to the top seed and then went 11-0 in the West playoffs. With a healthy team, they probably would have engaged the Pistons in another seven-game war, one year after the 1988 Finals showdown. However, Byron Scott (before the series) and Magic Johnson (Game 2) went down with injuries. The Lakers had no chance under those adjusted circumstances, but the point remained: Kareem continued to be meaningfully productive — not on the same scope or scale, and not with the same amount of minutes, but enough to matter.
This is the template Tim Duncan can very realistically follow. Moreover, if you’re searching for reasons why the Spurs fell short, Duncan would not be in the top five.
Let’s get this out of the way:
1 – The deficient bench as a whole
2 – Inadequate perimeter shooting
3 – David West
4 – Patty Mills
5 – Assorted endgame missteps, from Manu Ginobili’s ill-advised pass at the end of Game 2, to Danny Green’s bad foul late in Game 5, to Tony Parker’s missed free throw at the end of Game 5 (with other micro-moments in between)
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Duncan’s game certainly eroded, yes, and he’s undeniably slipped to a lower tier of effectiveness as an NBA player, but the Spurs were victims of bigger sources of erosion and inadequacy in this series. Had the complementary parts and the whole bench performed anywhere close to reasonable expectations, one gets the feeling that — somehow — Duncan’s career wouldn’t be discussed in such urgent terms. Of course he’d be planning to return next season (which I still think he’ll do).
Then consider this very simple reason, one which doesn’t require much in the way of explanation: TIM DUNCAN HELPED A TEAM WIN 67 GAMES, MORE THAN IN ANY PREVIOUS REGULAR SEASON IN ITS HISTORY.
Duncan might be hard to keep on the floor against the Oklahoma City Thunder or Golden State Warriors (or Portland Trail Blazers) in the playoffs, but he can still be the fifth-best player on a team and stitch together minutes, rotations and team objectives during the course of the 5.5-month, 82-game regular season odyssey. A 15- to 20-minute per-game allocation in the playoffs, targeted to an opponent’s substitution patterns or lineup tweaks, can make Duncan a valuable player for shorter stretches of time.
In many ways, the abruptly emergent idea that Tim Duncan should retire is based on the reality that he won’t ever come close to his prime again. Who said a player can’t or shouldn’t continue to play just because his best years are over?
Tim Duncan can still produce good years. He’s still an expert positional defender who will help the Spurs in various contexts. He’s still the kind of teammate which can serve as an extra assistant coach from the bench ad provide guidance to younger players on road trips. If he’s doing those things and offering even modest statistical production during the season, his presence on a court — in a uniform — is still worth it. Easily.
None of this seems like a reach, or the desperate pleas of someone who can’t let go of Tim Duncan.
This all seems like common sense, much as it did with Kareem on the 1989 Lakers.
Tim Duncan can still be very good for the San Antonio Spurs. We simply have to alter our expectations of the ways in which No. 21 continues to contribute to the NBA’s model franchise.
