San Antonio Spurs Still Need Tim Duncan

Tim Duncan’s value to the San Antonio Spurs isn’t about championships, now: it’s about branding.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, future Hall-of-Famer Tim Duncan has finally retired from the San Antonio Spurs after 19 seasons, five NBA championships, two league MVP awards, three NBA Finals MVP awards, 15 NBA All-Star game appearances and a slew of other records that are too numerous to list here, but the NBA and others did it for us.).

Yes, the NBA power couple I dubbed “Duncopovich” finally broke up.

Though many had been anticipating it for real this time, the reality still hit hard (I mourned with everyone else, but I had already said my goodbyes).

Duncan ended his career on his terms, with little fanfare, and with no mainstream media conference (in fact, his only “conference” was an interview given in his home to his best friend, radio DJ Rashidi Clemence, on Clemence’s radio station based in their home, the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Related Story: 25 Best Players to Play for the San Antonio Spurs

(It’s a rather insightful interview. Just try to ignore the shakiness of the homemade video and the annoying woman in the background who won’t shut up.)

The Internet has been ablaze with rightfully deserved paeans of praise for the man considered by some of the best basketball minds to be the greatest power forward to play the game, ever (though there is debate about him actually being a power forward, but I digress).

One of the most touching tributes came from Duncan’s longtime and only coach, Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, who gave an emotional press conference after the announcement of Duncan’s retirement.

Among the many tear-jerking sentiments contained in this video was that Popovich, unsurprisingly, wants Duncan to stick around the Spurs organization in some part-time capacity.

Yes, the Spurs will miss Duncan’s leadership, camaraderie, and signature bank shot, but they will miss something else even more: the personification of the Spurs’ cultural identity.

Tim Cato of SB Nation wrote an interesting column, in which he wondered if the Spurs could still be the Spurs without Duncan. That question begs examination from a different perspective.

More than being the “living, breathing example in the locker room every day,” Duncan was the face of the franchise. By all accounts, he was the franchise.

Duncan was the Spurs’ calling card, the reason players not only wanted to come and play for the Spurs, but also live in military-oriented, blue-collar, small-town San Antonio and its environs–which, if you’re not in the military, doesn’t really have much else to recommend it.

Duncan made the city relevant to the non-military world because he helped the Spurs become and stay relevant, by virtue of his personality, leadership and those five championship banners hanging in the AT&T Center.

What do you do when your ace in the hole is gone?

"“We walk into our houses and thank Tim Duncan,” Mike Budenholzer, former Spurs assistant coach and current head coach of the Atlanta Hawks, told Kevin Arnowitz of ESPN. “You think about all the coaches and all the GMs and even the assistant video guys who are now assistant coaches, all the people who have climbed the NBA ladder — we all owe our success, our place in the league to Timmy. The magnitude of that, the number of people in this league who have enjoyed opportunity or found fortunate spots in the league, you can trace it back to this one guy — to the way Timmy played ball and the conducted himself. The ‘culture’ is Timmy.”"

Wow.

Duncan’s importance to the Spurs franchise will be discussed at great length for the next few months (or years, depending)  as fans come to grips with him no longer being in the league.

His importance to the franchise can’t be overstated and may prove even more valuable going forward,  as the Spurs seek to recruit players.

More from San Antonio Spurs

• NBA legend mocked for questionable Victor Wembanyama hot take
• 5 players who will challenge Victor Wembanyama for Rookie of the Year
• Latest odds give Wembanyama a chance to win two awards as a rookie
• Is Rookie of the Year Victor Wembanyama’s to lose?
• NBA Trades: Spurs can add a recent lottery pick in this deal with Pistons

The older veterans, like Pau Gasol (who recently signed with the Spurs as a free agent), appreciate the Spurs system of simplicity , hard work, and results, as well as their tendency to manage minutes for older players.

It’s why David West left more than $12 million on the table in Indiana to join the Spurs last season as he hunted for his first championship ring. It’s why LaMarcus Aldridge left a sweet setup in Portland to come to the Alamo City.

The league, however, is getting younger and younger. It takes more flash, and a lot of cash (hi, crazy salary cap), to attract players now.

The Spurs got around that by selling the ability to play with perhaps the greatest power forward ever, who was directly responsible for each of the franchise’s championships, but they can’t use that anymore.

Even the bling of past championships isn’t enough to woo most players in the “what have you done for me lately” mentality that is taking hold of the NBA.

Just ask the Los Angeles Lakers, who have had difficulty recruiting quality free agents both pre- and post-Kobe Bryant’s retirement, because all they really have to sell is the past (glitz and glamour aside, the last of the Lakers’ 16 championships was six years ago, and that doesn’t look to change anytime soon.)

Resting on past laurels means nothing for those with a firm eye toward their future.

With all due respect to new Spurs franchise face, All-Star and two-time, back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year Kawhi Leonard, the lure of playing alongside him as a reason to don the Silver and Black, isn’t that compelling.

For all of his stoicism and aversion to the press, he’s still not Duncan. Neither is Aldridge, the free agent that the Spurs went all out to recruit last year–with a recruitment team that included Duncan.

More from Hoops Habit

• 7 Players the Miami Heat might replace Herro with by the trade deadline
• Meet Cooper Flagg: The best American prospect since LeBron James
• Are the Miami Heat laying the groundwork for their next super team?
• Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year NBA players bound to breakout
• NBA Trades: The Lakers bolster their frontcourt in this deal with the Pacers

And you don’t hear of players flocking to suit up alongside Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili, even though they are future Hall of Famers in their own right.

How can you convince a Ben Simmons or a Brandon Ingram to play for a team that has less highlight reels as a whole, than either Simmons or Ingram has probably had individually as players their whole lives? How can you sell a D’Angelo Russell or a Hassan Whiteside on The Spurs Way?

What possible incentive can the Spurs offer to a young player who comes of age in the endorsement-happy, NBA 2K rating-coveting, “get rich or die trying” ethos of today’s NBA?

Popovich and Spurs general manager R.C. Buford need Duncan around the team in some capacity, so they can at least offer Duncan as both a mentor, and a reminder of the franchise’s greatness.

He’s the Morpheus to the Spurs’ Agent-dodging rebels; if you recall from The Matrix, the Oracle made it plain:

"“Without Morpheus, we are lost.”"

More hoops habit: 50 Greatest NBA Players Of The 1970s

The Spurs need Duncan more than ever now, as they try to move forward without their Most Valuable Player, in the literal sense. Without him, even if it’s in a practice gym, they’re just another team. And “just another team” isn’t a good look in the new NBA.