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Report: Tim Duncan Retires from NBA

After 19 NBA seasons, San Antonio Spurs big man Tim Duncan retires from the NBA, according to reports. He'll go down as one of the greatest players ever.

After 19 NBA seasons, San Antonio Spurs forward/center Tim Duncan has decided to retire from basketball.

The Spurs announced Duncan’s decision to retire through a simple press release on Monday morning:

Report: Tim Duncan Retires from NBA

Duncan averaged just 8.6 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 1.3 blocks per game last season — all career-low numbers by a wide margin. The 40-year-old saw a significant decline in his play in his 19th NBA season, after sustaining a remarkable level of basketball excellence for the greater part of two decades.

Duncan was selected by the Spurs with the first overall pick in the 1997 NBA Draft, after attending Wake Forest University for the full four seasons of an illustrious college basketball career. He was always a “sure thing” coming out of college, and he proved it right off the bat, making an All-Star appearance and winning the Rookie of the Year award in his first NBA season — one of the best rookie seasons ever.

Duncan made 15 All-Star teams in his career, along with 15 All-NBA teams and 15 All-Defensive teams. His career is the model for sustained individual excellence in the NBA, yet his team’s accomplishments with him have been just as impressive. Duncan has made six NBA Finals appearances with the Spurs, including winning five NBA championships, for which Duncan was the NBA Finals MVP three times. During Duncan’s tenure, the Spurs have won more than 60 percent of their games every season — an unprecedented run in modern day sports.

Duncan’s relationship with long-time Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich is well-documented, as Popovich has said multiple times that his Hall of Fame coaching career would not be possible without Duncan. Duncan also had a unique relationship with long-time teammates Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, with whom he played 14 and 13 seasons, respectively. Every teammate, coach, and member of the Spurs organization in any capacity in the last 20 years has only had positive things to say about Duncan. He is truly a professional — the ultimate leader, teammate, and player. His disciplined mentality and nearly unparalleled work ethic is part of what consistently set the tone for the Spurs in their amazing run over these last 19 years.

In a league that was taken over by Kobe Bryant‘s retirement tour with the Los Angeles Lakers this past season, Duncan has chosen a different path. Bryant, the closest of anyone to being Duncan’s “rival” over their NBA careers, decided to announce his retirement publicly at the beginning of the season and enjoy the showers of love that fans at every NBA arena showed him (despite the Lakers suffering through another terrible season, of course). Meanwhile, Duncan decided to do as he always does: keep quiet, continue working, and help the Spurs rattle off another 67 wins. It was only afterwards that everyone, perhaps including Duncan himself, would learn that this would be his final NBA season. This kind of quiet, humble retirement is as fitting as it could possibly be for Duncan. It’s essentially a microcosm of his entire career.

Duncan will surely go down as one of the top ten NBA players of all time, right up there alongside Bryant as the best of their generation. Many call Duncan the greatest power forward of all time, but that doesn’t do him much justice. Duncan played center for a lot of his career, proving that he could fit in when the NBA started to shift to the small-ball, pace-and-space era towards the end of Duncan’s career. In the near future, Duncan will be an easy selection as a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

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