“If we win, I am happy, the rest of it is just stuff”: Tim Duncan, despite his 6ft 11″ frame and immaculate basketball skills was a simple man who wanted wins more than MVPs

The San Antonio Spurs legend Tim Duncan can be the ideal mould for a successful athlete as both his skills and attitude were as good as anyone could imagine.

Tim Duncan was everything a basketball coach desires the best player of his team to be. One cannot get anybody better than that humble 6ft 11″ 21-year-old kid from the Virgin Islands who could do it all that can be done on a basketball court and still would keep his head down like he knows nothing.

After coming in as the number 1 pick in the 1997 draft, he played in the league for 19 years, achieved everything there is for a basketball player and dominated most of his career but was through and through a down-to-earth man.

That humble attitude and immaculate basketball skills would be the launching pad for his and Gregg Popovic’s San Antonio Spurs, to become one of the best franchises in the league. A big example of how genuinely grounded he was, came into light, when he won his first MVP award in 2002.

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Tim Duncan was a simple man who wanted wins more than MVPs

By 2002 a 26-year-old Duncan was already a superstar in the league. An NBA champion, multiple All-Star appearances, All-NBA and All-Defensive First Team selections, Finals MVP he had already done it all.

That year he would average his career high in points leading the Spurs to a second-place finish in the West and to the Western Conference Semi-finals where they would lose the series to Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal-led Lakers who’d go on to three-peat.

Still, Tim won his first MVP award for averaging overly impressive 25.5points, 12.7rebounds, 3.7assists, and 2.5 blocks, having played all 82 games that season but it didn’t mean anything for him to have his career year because he couldn’t win it all.

“If we win, I am happy, the rest of it is just stuff.” Duncan said after receiving his first MVP.

Two straight eliminations at the hands of the Lakers and his father’s death after the 2002 Playoffs exit motivated Tim like never before. And the man improved his game to an even higher level and led his team to their second championship in 2003 winning another MVP and Finals MVP along the way.

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