{"id":23811,"date":"2016-07-13T19:16:50","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T19:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/?p=23811"},"modified":"2016-07-13T19:26:29","modified_gmt":"2016-07-13T19:26:29","slug":"basketball-tim-duncan-retires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/basketball-tim-duncan-retires\/","title":{"rendered":"BASKETBALL: TIM DUNCAN RETIRES!"},"content":{"rendered":"

TIM DUNCAN RETIRES!<\/h1>\n

Say it ain\u2019t so. Please!<\/p>\n

San Antonio Spurs star Tim Duncan announced his (semi-surprise) retirement from the sport two days ago. I literally gasped out loud when I read the news, and felt instantly sick.<\/p>\n

\"tim_duncan_300\"<\/a>I had just written about the Spurs last week, in my column on the recent NBA Draft. (If you missed it, you can read it here: itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/basketball-nba-draft-2016<\/a>.) I said I was so glad that the iconic team was staying intact, amidst the greatest shake-up in NBA basketball team personnel that I\u2019ve ever witnessed, so that I can still have my favorite team to root for. And now this.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m truly sick over it. And this bad news came while I\u2019ve been still trying to rise above Roger Federer losing in the Semis of Wimbledon, a match he almost (and, by all rights, should have) won. That pain was so deep that I\u2019ve been seriously considering giving-up watching sports. I get so upset for these strangers that sometimes I really can’t get over their losses. (It\u2019s not fun being an Empath.)<\/p>\n

But I am<\/em> happy for Tim that he\u2019s retiring on his own terms. He\u2019s forty, for goodness sake! There\u2019s only one other guy still playing at that age, (current fellow Spur, Andre Miller) and he\u2019s a bench guy, who is far from being in the spotlight.<\/p>\n

\"140916131456-tim-duncan-reacts-iso-road-uni-091614.1200x672\"<\/a>By retiring now, and not after the coming season, there will be no Tim Duncan Farewell Tour. That is just like him to do. Or not<\/em> do! He wants to go out with no fanfare. I\u2019m sure that I\u2019m not his only fan who wanted to see him get feted in every NBA city, so to be deprived of those festivities makes me a bit sadder.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m happy for Tim. He\u2019s leaving on his own terms, just as he played on them.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s one of the greatest basketball players we\u2019ve ever had the privilege to watch—for nineteen seasons!!!<\/p>\n

Here are just some of Tim Duncan\u2019s major NBA accomplishments:<\/p>\n

–He spent his entire nineteen<\/em>-season career with the Spurs! It\u2019s beyond rare that a player stays with just one organization forever. He\u2019s like the Derek Jeter of basketball! (The only other two players to have done that are John Stockton with the Utah Jazz, and the winner, Kobe Bryant, who just retired after twenty<\/em> seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers.)<\/p>\n

\"1402961430000-USATSI-7955943\"<\/a>–With Tim, the Spurs won five<\/em> championships. Five!<\/p>\n

–He\u2019s only the second player in history (John Salley, with whom I just chatted yesterday, is the first) to have won a Championship in three<\/em> different decades!!! (Most guys can’t even envision playing<\/em> in three different decades!) But Tim is the only starter<\/em> to do it.<\/p>\n

–He was the #1 draft pick in 1997, and has totally lived-up to those expectations.<\/p>\n

–During Tim\u2019s time there, the Spurs had a regular season record of 1,072 wins to just 438 losses, which gives them a .710 winning percentage. That\u2019s the best nineteen-year stretch in NBA history! (It\u2019s also the best among all the other<\/em> major sports leagues\u2014the MLB, NFL, and NHL\u2014during that same period of time.)<\/p>\n

\"tim-duncan-5-championships\"<\/a>–He was the #1 draft pick in 1997, and has totally lived-up to those expectations. Right off the bat, he won the 1998 Rookie of the Year award, and followed that up by becoming the NBA MVP twice (in 2002 and 2003) and the NBA Finals MVP three times (in 1999, 2003, and 2005.)<\/p>\n

–He\u2019s a fifteen-time<\/em> All-Star!<\/p>\n

–He helped the Spurs reach the play-offs in all<\/em> of his nineteen seasons with them.<\/p>\n

–He\u2019s one of only two players (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the other) in NBA history to accumulate at least 26,000 points, 15,000 rebounds, and 3,000 blocks over his career.<\/p>\n

–He\u2019s the Spurs all-time leader in total points (26,496,) rebounds (15,091,) blocked shots (3,020,) minutes (47,368,) and games played (1,392,) and is third in assists (4,225.)<\/p>\n

Tim Duncan has oh so many more career achievements, but I didn\u2019t want to bore any of you. (For those of you who are<\/em> interested to read about them all, the stats are so easy to research.)<\/p>\n

\"Manu<\/a>

Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan, Gregg Popovich, and Tony Parker.<\/p><\/div>\n

So\u00a0here are the last two, which I really love, because I\u2019m a sucker for great team camaraderie: Tim and his two other long-time teammates, starter Tony Parker and sixth man Manu Ginobili, have the NBA record for most wins by a trio in both the regular season (575) and postseason (126.) And Tim and his amazing Spurs coach, Gregg Popovich, have the most wins (1,001) by a player-coach duo in NBA history!<\/p>\n

So, can you see why I\u2019ll miss Tim Duncan next season?!<\/p>\n

\"Tim<\/a>

Tim Duncan’s classy “farewell” note to his many fans.<\/p><\/div>\n

But, I have to buck-up and wish him the best going forward. I\u2019ve heard that he\u2019s a great dad to his two children, so this should give him some more time with them. And, since he speaks so well, I\u2019m hoping that maybe he\u2019ll become a commentator. I\u2019d love him to replace Shaquille O\u2019Neal on Inside The NBA<\/em>, because a) I can barely make-out a word Shaq says, with his weird voice, and b) Tim would never even try<\/em> to funny, which would give my beloved Charles Barkley more to work off.<\/p>\n

Have a great retirement, Tim! I\u2019ll try to forgive you soon for breaking my already-fragile sports heart.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TIM DUNCAN RETIRES! Say it ain\u2019t so. Please! San Antonio Spurs star Tim Duncan announced his (semi-surprise) retirement from the sport two days ago. I literally gasped out loud when I read the news, and felt instantly sick. I had just written about the Spurs last week, in my column on the recent NBA Draft.<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23811"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23830,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23811\/revisions\/23830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}