rebirthoftheM wrote:And yes I do recognise that Duncan took less money, but again, we are going into peripheral matters. I mean should Duncan be praised for taking a pay cut, to save pennies for a billionaire?
"Peripheral" means of secondary of minor importance; marginal."
Unlike many who talk about the Spurs after the fact, I watched the Spurs for the entirety of the Duncan Era to the present, and recorded what was happening as it happened. That record exceeds 1,000 pages, which I am 100% certain that no other internet poster on sports forums has done for anything, because people don't go to that much trouble for something they watch for entertainment. I can turn to any year of the last 20 with the details preserved so that they aren't forgotten, misremembered or revised as history often is as the years go by. And when I speak on them, I'm not going solely on memory, or giving an opinion, I have the facts right in front of me when I post. I'm looking right now at an article written in June 2014 about the contribution the Spurs role players made to their title run. I scroll to 2012 and look at the lesser salary Duncan took, and the details are saved that the Spurs used the extra money not spent on Duncan on Boris Diaw, Danny Green, and Patty Mills. I scroll back to 2014, and, what do you know, those three players helped the Spurs win. Let me scroll up to the Finals and the discussion going on. Yes, I remember. Boris Diaw's name was in the Finals MVP discussion. Back down to the article summarizing the contributions of the "role players." Diaw's described as "a vital piece to the team's success"; a "secret weapon."
That's not "peripheral." If Duncan doesn't take less money, the Spurs can't get those players, and if they can't get those players, they're not there to help the Spurs win. That's the opposite of "minor importance; marginal." That directly helped his team win. That's a concrete, specific instance, not generalities. Let me refer to another article. It talks about how the Spurs don't have the money other teams have to spend on players, don't have high draft picks, and they're not a premier free agent destination that attracts elite players. So they need to find another way to compete. Duncan taking less money equaled more money for the team to use to get help, giving them "salary-cap flexibility to continue to surround him with a competitive support cast." Direct quote from another article. It enabled the front office to do what they needed to do so the team could keep winning.
Spurs general manager R.C. Buford wrote:Tim's contributed to our success in so many ways for so long. I know people continue to point it out, and it needs to be pointed out, the support and what he's allowed us to do, but this is nothing new.
That isn't of "minor importance; marginal." He truly did whatever was needed to help his team win, which is why they were the most successful franchise in all of professional sports at his retirement. I scroll to the 2015 off-season, and after he was cheated out of money by his financial adviser, he "[gave up] millions in salary to give the San Antonio Spurs the cap space needed to re-sign teammates and add players such as LaMarcus Aldridge." You know,
the first big name free agent acquisition of the Duncan Era? The guy who was to be his successor? The guy who just had 34 and 12 last game to lead the Spurs to the Western Conference Finals?
Despite being arguably the team's best overall player last season, Duncan is taking a $5 million pay cut this season so the team had the resources necessary to re-sign Leonard and Danny Green and bring in Aldridge, a prized free agent.
That's why when I see people talking about the Spurs winning 61 games in their first year post-Duncan, I know they haven't actually been following the Spurs on anything other than a superficial basis.
Duncan’s last gift to the Spurs is the ability to walk away and not leave the organization in complete ruins.
The Spurs' success is part of Duncan's legacy. Unlike any of the other all-time top ten players, Duncan made sure he left the team in good shape to continue to compete after he was gone. If anyone actually followed the Spurs last year, this was talked about all throughout Duncan's last year. And this was just last season, not 10 years ago. And I don't just have my own memories, I saved the discussion as it was taking place.
rebirthoftheM wrote:The spurs system goes beyond any single player, although Duncan was a great cornerstone to have (as was Drob and Manu).
From what I've seen, people who talk about the Spurs system only started paying attention to the Spurs within the last five years. They couldn't tell you how the Spurs evolved over the years, because, as the ratings attest to, people weren't watching them so they wouldn't have any first-hand knowledge to draw from.
Inside the league, Tim Duncan became the most influential player of his generation. Though he had little public appeal outside central Texas over his two decades in the league, Duncan ushered in cultural change in NBA practice facilities, locker rooms and executive suites.
The present-day NBA has become singularly consumed with the adoption and implementation of organizational culture. Forever looking for competitive advantages, franchises have turned to workplace culture as a bulwark. We might not be able to attract a top-line free agent, or hit the jackpot in the draft, but there are 44 games in an NBA season that can be won if we value the right things.
This is the league's guiding principle in 2016, from Atlanta and Salt Lake City to Oklahoma City and Brooklyn, where disciples of the Tim Duncan era learned the art and science of team-building in San Antonio. They've applied the findings and sculpted them to suit a particular roster or market. Some have enjoyed modest success while others are just getting started. But try as they might to replicate the Spurs' recipe, all of them are forced to concede at a certain juncture that they're missing one essential ingredient:
They don't have Tim Duncan.
''The real key is can you find that kind of person that will allow you to build your culture like that?'' Milwaukee Bucks GM John Hammond said. ''I think a lot of people are trying to copy that.''
If you were starting an organization from scratch in any sport you would look to the Spurs to model your franchise after and yet it wouldn’t work, because you wouldn’t have Tim Duncan.
Duncan enabled Popovich to do what he wanted to do. He let himself be coached, which set the example for everyone else and empowered Popovich. In contrast to players who flex their power and disregard the coach, letting it be known to everyone in no uncertain terms that they're above the coach on the totem pole. Or outright get him fired.
Duncan has helped Popovich win 751 games and four championships. The reason their partnership has worked so well is because Popovich can coach Duncan. Yes, it sounds like a basic component of his job, but you'd be amazed how many coaches live in fear of their stars and take out all of their anger on lesser players.
This has been talked about numerous times in the Duncan Era. In the NBA, if a player wants a coach gone, he's gone. A team will get rid of a coach before a player. Popovich had security because he didn't have to worry about the typical BS.
On the floor and in the locker room, it's Duncan's personality -- as great as he is as a player -- that has not allowed anyone to get outside themselves. He commands and personifies the Spurs. "This is how we do it around here." He walks the talk.
The franchise player sets the tone for everyone else.
When your main guy at the top is nearly devoid of an ego, you will field a roster of players devoid of egos. Teams take on the personalities of their best player.
Duncan and Popovich have on numerous occasions been called the modern-day Russell and Auerbach, and this is just as true for the former as it was for the latter:
Auerbach’s empire-building was made a lot easier by the fact that Russell was a true team player. He didn’t count points, rebounds or blocked shots; the only thing that mattered was whether or not the team won. It was a lot easier for Red to instill the proper Celtics attitude when his star player embodied it.
Likewise, the Spurs were able to craft the locker-room environment it did where no one whined about minutes or shots or lack of spotlight because their star player embodied it.
The greatest representation of Tim Duncan’s incalculable value to the San Antonio Spurs is rooted deeply in the organization’s ethos.
Selflessness as an organizational characteristic doesn’t mean anything unless Tim Duncan is there to exhibit those traits every day.
Pat Riley once wrote about The Disease of More. When a team is successful everyone wants more: More playing time, more attention, and more money. With Tim Duncan it’s the Luxury of Less: Less money, less attention, and less playing time; all attributes unprecedented in modern professional sports.
Would Popovich’s selfless, team-first basketball ethos carry any substance throughout the roster without Duncan?
The "Disease of More/Disease of Me" took root in the Showtime Lakers, but the Duncan Era Spurs never suffered from it.
Around Duncan, San Antonio has crafted a locker-room environment that you won't find anywhere else. No one ever whines about minutes or shots or the lack of spotlight that filters to their market. Two key rotation regulars followed Duncan's team-first influence to take less money upon re-signing with the Spurs and help the club's overall financial flexibility.
Since Duncan, the team's best player, took less money, other players followed his example to enable the team to be able to get players so they could continue to compete without actually ever rebuilding. Because the franchise player sets the tone. And it enable the Big Three to play together so long and set records for teammates.
''They've been together 12 years,'' Suns coach Jeff Hornacek said of the Spurs' Big Three. ''It'd be great to have that San Antonio pattern, but I'm not sure it's ever going to happen again because you've got a guy like Tim Duncan, who has taken less money. Ginobili took less money, Tony Parker has taken less money and it's allowed them to do other things to bring those pieces in.
''If you can find guys to do that, then you've got a chance. But I think that's getting harder and harder.''
Execs wanting to replicate the Spurs' success needs a franchise player like Duncan in order for it to work.
In a world where the AAU culture encourages players to think of themselves as a brand and where NBA superstars wield enough power to get coaches fired and teammates traded, Duncan was the quintessential franchise player.
He sacrificed money, minutes and shots to keep the Spurs a legitimate contender for two decades.
There's a lot more, but my instincts tell me it would be a waste of time. Which is why I don't do this kind of thing as much as I used to anymore.
Now, I couldn't care less about convincing anyone of anything. In over 11 years as a registered member here, I've never once advocated anyone for GOAT, which can't be said of anyone else who's been here as long as I have, and I've never had a GOAT list of any kind. So it doesn't matter to me where anyone else ranks a particular player, since it doesn't benefit my life in any way, and I'm not an agent. But since I have more on Duncan than anyone here, I took time to go through the 1,000+ pages to find the relevant specifics to post.
But there was a sports book over a decade ago that talked about the paradigm shift in basketball, which is why the majority of basketball fans would regard it as "marginal." Basketball fans who are non-playing spectators watch basketball as entertainment, and from that perspective aren't concerned with all the things that help a team win.
