Timothy Theodore "Tim" Duncan, born April 25, 1976 is an American professional basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The 6-foot 11-inch (2.11 m), 255-pound (116 kg) power forward/center is a four-time NBA champion, two-time NBA MVP, three-time NBA Finals MVP, and NBA Rookie of the Year. The Spurs' team captain, he is a 13 time NBA All-Star and the only player in NBA history to be selected to both All-NBA and All-Defensive Teams during each of his first 13 seasons.
Duncan started out as a swimmer and only began playing basketball in ninth grade after Hurricane Hugo destroyed the only Olympic-sized pool on Saint Croix. He soon became a standout for St. Dunstan's Episcopal High School, and had an illustrious college career with the Wake Forest University Demon Deacons, winning the Naismith College Player of the Year, USBWA College Player of the Year and John Wooden awards in his final year. Duncan graduated from college before entering the 1997 NBA Draft as the number one pick. His list of accomplishments, remarkable consistency, and leadership in the Spurs' NBA championship runs in 1999, 2003, 2005, and 2007 have led basketball experts to consider him to be one of the greatest power forwards in NBA history.
Off the court, Duncan is known for his quiet and unassuming ways, as well as his active philanthropy. He holds an honors degree in psychology and created the Tim Duncan Foundation to raise general health awareness and fund education and youth sports in various parts of the United States.
Duncan starts at the power forward position, but can also play center. With a double-double career average in points and rebounds, he is considered one of the most consistent players in the NBA. He has earned All-NBA and All-Defensive honors every season since his rookie year in 1998 while being a perennial candidate for the Most Valuable Player and Defensive Player of the Year awards. Regarded as one of the league's best interior defenders, Duncan also ranks consistently as one of the top scorers, rebounders and shot-blockers in the league. As of the 2009–10 season, he is ranked third in regular season point-rebound double-doubles. His main weakness remains his free throw shooting, with a career average of less than 70%.
Apart from his impressive statistics, Duncan has gained a reputation as a good clutch player, as evidenced by his three NBA Finals MVP awards and his playoff career averages being higher than his regular-season statistics. Eleven-time NBA champion Bill Russell further compliments Duncan on his passing ability, and rates him as one of the most efficient players of his generation, a view shared by 19-time NBA All-Star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Because of his versatility and success, basketball experts have spoken of Duncan as one of the greatest power forwards in NBA history, while coach Popovich and team-mates Parker and Ginóbili have also credited much of San Antonio's success to him.Duncan's detractors, however, label him as "boring" because of his simple but effective style of play (thus earning him the nickname "The Big Fundamental"). Following his first championship ring in 1999, Sports Illustrated described him as a "quiet, boring MVP", a characterization which persists today.
Duncan himself commented on his "boring" image, stating: "If you show excitement, then you also may show disappointment or frustration. If your opponent picks up on this frustration, you are at a disadvantage. Sports journalist Kevin Kernan commented on his ability to relax and stay focused, stating that having a degree in psychology, Duncan often not only outplays, but out-psychs his opponents. Duncan has also stated that he especially likes his bank shot, saying: "It is just easy for me. It just feels good.
In his basketball career, Duncan has collected a number of individual and team honors, including being a two-time MVP (2002, 2003), four-time NBA champion (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007) and three-time NBA Finals MVP (1999, 2003, 2005). As a college player, he was honored by the House of Representatives, named the ACC Male Athlete of the Year, won the John R. Wooden Award, and was selected as the Naismith College Player of the Year (all 1997). In 2002, Duncan was named to the ACC 50th Anniversary men's basketball team honoring the 50 greatest players in ACC history. In his debut year in the NBA (1998), he was voted Rookie of the Year and elected into the All-NBA Rookie Team, made the first of 13 NBA All-Star Teams (1997–98 and 1999–2000 to 2010–11), 13 All-NBA Teams (1997–98 to 2008–09; nine First Team nominations), and 13 All-Defensive Teams (1997–98 to 2009–10; eight First Team nominations). With these impressive performances, Duncan is one of only four players to receive All-NBA First Team honors in each of his first eight seasons (1998–2005), along with Hall of Famers Bob Pettit (ten seasons), Larry Bird (nine seasons), and Oscar Robertson (nine seasons), and is the only player in NBA history to receive All-NBA and All-Defensive honors in his first 13 seasons (1997–98 to 2009–10).
Duncan was also named by the Association for Professional Basketball Research as one of "100 Greatest Professional Basketball Players of The 20th Century", the youngest player on that list. In the 2001–02 season, he won the IBM Player Award and The Sporting News (TSN) MVP Award, becoming the third player to ever win the NBA MVP, IBM Player and TSN Player Awards in the same season. On February 18, 2006, he was named one of the Next 10 Greatest Players on the tenth anniversary of the release of the NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team by the TNT broadcasting crew. In 2009, Duncan was ranked 8th by Slam Magazine in their list of the Top 50 NBA players of All Time. Sports Illustrated named him its NBA Player of the Decade.
Tim Duncan has two older sisters, Cheryl and Tricia Like their younger brother, they were gifted athletes: Cheryl was a championship swimmer before she became a nurse, and Tricia swam for the U.S. Virgin Islands at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul.
Duncan married his wife Amy in 2001 and the couple had their first child, daughter Sydney, in the summer of 2005. They had a second child, a son, during the summer of 2007. Amy oversees the Tim Duncan Foundation, which has been established to serve the areas of health awareness/research, education, and youth sports/recreation in San Antonio, Winston-Salem, and the United States Virgin Islands. The foundation holds two major fundraisers each year: the annual Tim Duncan Bowling for Dollar$ Charity Bowl-A-Thon and the annual Slam Duncan Charity Golf Classic. Between 2001 and 2002, the foundation raised more than $350,000 to help fight breast and prostate cancer. In those two years, Duncan was named by Sporting News as one of the "Good Guys" in sports.The Spurs captain also supports the Children's Bereavement Center, the Children's Center of San Antonio and the Cancer Therapy and Research Center.
Duncan cites his late mother Ione as his main inspiration. Among other things, she taught him and his sisters the nursery rhyme "Good, Better, Best. Never let it rest / Until your Good is Better, and your Better is your Best," which he adopted as his personal motto.[8] On and off the court, he believes that the three most important values are dedication, teamwork and camaraderie.[8] The Spurs captain has also stated that he chose #21 for his jersey because that was his brother-in-law's college number, since he was Duncan's main basketball inspiration, and cites Hall-of-Fame Los Angeles Lakers point guard Magic Johnson as his childhood idol.
For his mixture of success and low-key personality, Duncan has been honored with the Virgin Islands Medal of Honor, the highest award bestowed by the Virgin Islands territorial government, and has been celebrated in several "Tim Duncan Day" ceremonies. In 2000, Legislature of the Virgin Islands President Vargrave Richards of St. Croix said: "He is a quiet giant. His laid-back attitude is the embodiment of the people of St. Croix, doing things without fanfare and hoopla.
Regarding his own personality, Duncan compares himself to Will Hunting of the movie Good Will Hunting, which centers around the genial and antagonistic character of Will Hunting, portrayed by Matt Damon. He stated: "I'm just a taller, slightly less hyperactive version of the Damon character in the movie. I really enjoyed how he probed people and found out their weaknesses just by asking questions and stating outlandish remarks. He also admitted shunning the limelight because "[fame] is not me. Off the court, he has stated that his best friend is former Spurs colleague Antonio Daniels, who describes Duncan as a cheerful, funny person off the hardwood.
Duncan loves Renaissance fairs, Larping and the fantasy role playing game Dungeons & Dragons. An avid video game player, he acknowledges a certain joy of playing "himself" on basketball video games. Duncan states if he had the chance, he would challenge NBA legends Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to a one-on-one game.
The satirical newspaper The Onion has repeatedly poked fun of Duncan's low key and cerebral reputation and its contradiction with the stereotype of outlandish celebrity athlete behavior with headlines such as "Tim Duncan Hams It Up For Crowd By Arching Left Eyebrow Slightly," "Tim Duncan Offers To Do Taxes For Entire Spurs Team," "Tim Duncan Autobiography Reveals He Is Friends With 10,000 Women" (a parody of Wilt Chamberlain's famous claim) and "Tim Duncan Announces Shoe Deal With Florsheim.
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