OAKLAND – On the night it became official — really, really official — the Spurs played a regular-season or postseason game without retired Tim Duncan on the roster for the first time in 19 ½ years, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili took the floor without Duncan as a teammate for the only time in their careers, and someone probably should have checked to make sure Earth kept spinning.
The Spurs themselves were in disbelief at the strangeness of Tuesday night inside Oracle Arena, a feeling that wasn’t tempered even by the ultimate in statements about moving forward, the surprisingly easy 129-100 victory over the Warriors in the season opener. One game won’t do it, no matter how impressive. One week won’t do it, maybe – probably – one month.
“It was weird,” Tony Parker said.
That word came up a lot.
Weird.
“Oh, sure,” agreed Gregg Popovich, who took over as coach during the season before Duncan arrived as the clear No. 1 pick. “It’s been fun just to have him come around. He’s come around and played a little bit and talked to the young kids and that sort of thing. But not seeing him on the bus or in the gym is a weird feeling. Twenty years is a long time to be with a player.”
The last game when Duncan was not on the roster – April 20, 1997 – the Spurs started Vinny Del Negro, Carl Herrera, Dominique Wilkins, Greg Anderson and Avery Johnson in a 103-99 loss to Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley and the Rockets at HemisFair Arena. Cory Alexander, Will Perdue, Vernon Maxwell and Jaime Feick played off the bench in the final black-and-blue mark from a 20-62 season, just before life changed forever in the draft.
Duncan, the easy call with the No. 1 pick, arrived about two months later, and the franchise, the city and the NBA would never be the same. There were the five titles, of course, and reaching the playoffs in all 19 seasons and the best winning percentage (.710) of any 19-year stretch in league history and two MVP awards and 15 All-Star appearances. Greatness at every turn. But he was also a lot of the personality of what grew into the model franchise of the NBA and arguably of any sports operation in North America.
Popovich has been brilliant as a coach and executive. R.C. Buford has been a master from the front office at personnel moves and continuously keeping the Spurs in the championship conversation as the roster turned over. Parker and Ginobili have been Hall-of-Fame good in their own right. San Antonio was the model franchise, though, because it had the model player, as professional in approach and attitude as he was talented and fundamentally sound. Duncan was the personality of the team known for being grounded and not caring about shots or commercial appearance.
And now, starting Tuesday, he is gone when the games count.
“Losing Tim, he was like a security blanket for everybody,” Popovich said. “Even if things went awry, he was like the center of the universe and everybody knew how to act around that. With that pivotal guy gone we’ll have to wait and see who accepts that role. Manu’s not going to play 37 minutes a game. He would probably be that guy if he was 28 years old or something like that. We’ll see how Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge and Pau Gasol adjust with Tony and we’ll go from there.”
They’ll have to figure it out as they go along, in other words, because this is basically unprecedented. It is hardly a desperate situation, not with Pop and a roster that should still be among the best in the league, but it is a challenge to overcome. Replacing the center of the universe can be tricky business, even amid 29-point wins over the consensus Western Conference favorite.
Let the record show, on the other side of April 20, 1997, that the starting lineup on Oct. 25, 2016 AD – After Duncan – was Leonard, Aldridge, Gasol, Kyle Anderson and Parker. Not bad at all. Just not with the security blanket nearby.
“He was a teammate of mine for four years,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr, a former Spurs guard, said before the game. “I read that it’s been like 20 years since anybody else but Tim started at the four. Nineteen, 20 years, whatever it is. It’s a crazy stat. But it’ll be strange not seeing him out there. There’s still Pop and Manu and Tony so you still see a big chunk of the history of that organization, but Timmy stood tallest, literally and figuratively, so it’ll be strange to not see him.”
Ginobili noted how “I think we’re going to start noticing his absence more and more as the season goes, when we struggle. Everything’s too new now. I think further into the season we’re going to start missing him even more.” Parker said, “It’s weird” – that word again – “but we have to get used to it.”
They don’t have a choice. Tim Duncan is not a Spur for the first time since 1997, everyone who stayed behind needs to stay in championship mode, and Earth keeps spinning.
Scott Howard-Cooper has covered the NBA since 1988. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter.
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