NBA playoffs are missing something ...
The last time the San Antonio Spurs failed to make the NBA playoffs, Spurs fans didn’t know the good times that were about to roll.
They couldn’t imagine the historic, title-filled ride coming that summer of 1997 with the arrival of a poker-faced 6-foot-11 tidal force from the Virgin Islands who’d lift the Spurs into one of the elite teams in American sports history.
For a man who is the antithesis of noisy selfpromotion and exuberant celebration, Tim Duncan was responsible for the blaring horns, unbridled joy, triumphant shouts and gritos, and downtown revelry unleashed on those five glorious nights when the Spurs won NBA championships. Nights followed by river parades along the River Walk.
Coming out of Wake Forest University, Duncan was a generational talent, destined for superstardom, who’d make any team perennial championship contenders. But for no other city would his impact have been as immediate and dramatic as it was in a small media market with only one major league sports team.
The three greatest and most important Spurs are George Gervin, David Robinson and Duncan, all Hall of Famers.
Gervin put San Antonio on the professional sports map.
Robinson elevated the franchise’s national profile while anchoring it to the city.
Duncan transformed the Spurs into a historic team.
The team’s NBA record-tying streak of making the playoffs for 22 consecutive seasons started in Duncan’s rookie year and was snapped last week, just ahead of what was to have been his induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Because of COVID-19, that ceremony has been postponed until May.
The Spurs’ postseason usually coincided with the start of Fiesta, making for an especially celebratory time in San Antonio. Adding to 2020’s endless list of dubious distinctions is that the city had neither.
During the streak, Duncan, with 15 All-star selections, two league MVPS and three NBA Finals MVPS, became the greatest power forward of all time and the Spurs a model, along with the NFL’S New England Patriots, of long-term consistent excellence among teams.
There may have never been an all-time great athlete who cared less about the trappings of fame, being quoted, getting commercial endorsements or having a brand than Duncan.
His lack of interest in the flash and sizzle of celebrity befits a man with the unflashy and unpoetic nickname of “The Big Fundamental.”
The lack of interest was a good thing since the Spurs never captured the hearts, imagination or television viewership of the nation.
What the Spurs accomplished over the 22-year playoff streak is remarkable.
A streak within a streak is the record 18 consecutive 50-win seasons. The national media routinely called the Spurs “boring.” But five times they also had to call them world champions. (There would have been a sixth time had the team not let Game 6 of the 2013 Finals against the Miami Heat get away from them — wait, we’re sorry about even bringing that up. Our bad.) They have the highest winning percentage of any professional sports team in North America over the past three decades; head coach Gregg Popovich is the winningest coach in NBA history (that’s regular and postseason combined); and they produced two Hall of Famers in Robinson and Duncan and four future Hall of Famers in Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, Pop and, yes, Kawhi Leonard.
So long was the Spurs’ playoff streak that Robinson’s retirement in 2003, after their second championship, was in the beginning of the era. But since 2016, the era has been ending, chapter by chapter, with the retirements of Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and, now, the end of the playoff streak. The last chapter and story’s end will be when Pop retires.
The San Antonio Spurs and Tim Duncan showed us that except in an extraordinary time of tragedy, a community is rarely as close as when celebrating a team’s championship run.
Five times, those runs ended with the blaring horns, unbridled joy and river parades along the River Walk, which will be the legacy of 22 years of excellence.
What an unforgettable ride.