Tim Duncan.
Ever heard of him?
Four-time NBA champion. Three-time NBA Finals MVP. Two-time NBA MVP.
Greatest. Power forward. Ever. (GPFE).
Ever heard the name?
As the ageless, wonderful, impossible-to-dislike San Antonio Spurs make this incredibly impressive run through the playoffs — seven wins, zero losses — I'm reminded that Tim Duncan is, indeed, still playing. And still playing very well.
At age 36, Duncan collected 19 points and 13 rebounds in the Spurs' comeback from down 24 points Saturday night to demoralize the Clippers in L.A., 96-86, and all but seal their advancement to the Western Conference Finals.
Which got me thinking, What Tim Duncan memories stand out to me? What games, what moments will I never forget about the NBA's GPFE.
I'll admit it — my memory is flawed. I don't have the gift of remembering specific plays from 10, 12 and 15 years ago. I'm no Bill Simmons and his encyclopedic NBA memory.
But I must have memories of a guy who's reached the pinnacle of professional basketball four times, right?
Still thinking...
And I've got nothing.
(In fact, the one Spurs moment that I'll never forget is when Robert Horry hit that dagger 3-pointer to bury my Pistons in Game 5 of the 2005 Finals — by the way, the greatest never-talked-about Finals of the last 20-plus years.)
But no Tim Duncan memories come to mind. This from a 13-time All Star who is a career double-double (20.3 ppg, 11.3 rpg, 50.7 percent shooting).
That speaks exactly to who Tim Duncan is, somehow, in this age of relentless, unapologetic media coverage; endless sound bites and highlights; and overexposure (see: Griffin, Blake).
The last great superstar under the radar.
Even during the peak of his greatness, Duncan never received the bulk of the headlines (see — in chronological order — Iverson, Allen; O'Neal, Shaquille; Bryant, Kobe; McGrady, Tracy; Wade, Dwyane; Bryant, Kobe (again); Garnett, Kevin ...).
He just continued to produce stellar game after stellar game, banking in those 15-footers, grabbing every rebound within his reach, playing with that stoic demeanor whether up 20 or down 20 (a reflection of his steady coach Gregg Popovich).
And now, finishing his 15th season, Duncan is considered, unarguably, the best player to ever take the court at his position. And, I'd posit, a top-10 player of all time.
All while avoiding the spotlight.
We will never see another player like Duncan. No, I'm not referring to his actual game. There will be more power forwards banking in jumpers, spinning into the lane to hit jump hooks, and overcoming just average athleticism to be defensively rock solid to the tune of 12 all-defensive NBA awards.
No, I'm referring to Duncan's ability to avoid the spotlight.
The current or future NBA superstar won't be able to slip through the cracks — they won't be able to avoid Twitter (except for a seven-Tweet experience in 2010). They'll be so overexposed that you'll come to think they're overrated just because of the attention they get (see, again: Griffin, Blake).
Tim Duncan is a dinosaur.
Now go watch his continued greatness before he's gone and completely forgotten — at least to the masses.
Whether you're in North Bend, Oregon, or Augusta, Maine, you might have heard about what that kid Bryce Harper did last night.
The Washington Nationals phenom threw a bat off a wall on the way to the clubhouse, and the bat didn't like it, caroming off the wall into Harper's face. Ten stitches later, he retook the field with a bloodied face.
What a brash, young fool!
You might have also tuned in last Sunday night and seen the kid steal home before the Phillies exerted their will during a 9-3, nationally televised thumping of the Nationals.
So, if you live in the Bay Area or Gary, Indiana, what do you think of the Washington Nationals?
Well, you're entitled to your opinion, but from living just a couple miles from Nationals Park here in the District and from following the club even more closely than the team, you know, that I like — that would be my hometown Tigers — I can tell you that the Nationals are the present and future of baseball.
The Nationals will be in the playoffs this year.
They'll likely be in the playoffs next year.
And they'll be in contention for the playoffs probably for the next decade.
No hyperbole here.
No other team can match what the Nationals have, assembled by the brash GM Mike Rizzo:
The best starting rotation in baseball — not a single starter older than 28 (that would be Edwin Jackson), with four of them 26 or younger.
A middle of the infield, in Ian Desmond and Danny Espinosa, which has struggled but is young and promising — Desmond is 26, Espinosa is 25.
And speaking of middles, a middle of the batting order in Ryan Zimmerman, Michael Morse, Jayson Werth and Adam LaRoche that packs plenty of punch — when healthy.
Oh, and that Harper kid.
(Not to mention what many consider to be one of the best farm systems in the game.)
And the Washington Nationals are winning now. This isn't, as many have posited, a team of the future, a team we'll see in contention two to three years from now. This is a team ready to win the division and compete in the playoffs this year.
Consider this: The Nationals have been without their slugger Morse the entire year and their best hitter Zimmerman for the last few weeks. The Nationals lost Werth on Sunday for at least a couple months and were without LaRoche for almost a week. The Nationals haven't had their closer Drew Storen all season and lost Brad Lidge, their closer No. 2, a couple weeks back. The Nationals are scoring the 26th most runs in the majors.
The Nationals are 20-12 and in first place.
If these guys all get healthy, I have a hard time seeing the Nationals losing any particular game. In other words, if I were in Vegas and betting on baseball (don't worry; I've never been to the Vegas), I'd take the Nationals every time.
Every night, a Nationals starter gives the team a chance to win. All the offense has to do is score three, maybe four runs. When they put up seven against the Reds last night, it was over — and 26-year-old Gio Gonzalez didn't even pitch that well, giving up two runs in five innings. By this rotation's standards, that's not a quality start.
When you have that luxury, a burden is lifted from the offense. There's not a pressure to score a certain amount of runs each game. Just do what you can do.
Enter Harper, a 19-year-old who doesn't seem to feel pressure or even realize he's in the big leagues. In his first game under the national spotlight, he only stole home, turned a single for any other major leaguer into a double, and made a diving catch in left field.
After the game, he wasn't at all fazed by the fact that Phillies starter Cole Hamels admitted to pegging him before that theft of home.
Harper isn't a rising star — he's a star. He'll go through his struggles, like yesterday's 0-for-5, bat (err, face) bashing performance, but he'll get better, more mature and flat-out dangerous every time he's at bat or on the base paths.
As people who know a lot more about baseball than I have opined, Harper isn't a hitter or a fielder, he's a "hellbent ball player." That ought to scare plenty of opposing teams.
Speaking of scary, that's what the Nationals are.
This is a team built perfectly for now, five years down the road and 10 years away. This is a team with an owner in Ted Lerner willing to spend, a GM in Mike Rizzo who's made the right moves, and a manager in Davey Johnson who's handling his hungry club the right way.
Get used to seeing the Washington Nationals at the top of the standings, because they're not going anywhere anytime soon.
Here's a disturbing statistic:
Of the San Diego Chargers 1994 Super Bowl team, eight players are dead before the age of 45.
Think about that.
Disturbing.
This one isn't as exact, but I'm not exaggerating:
Almost every month, we hear a tragic story about a former NFL player taking his own life.
Disturbing.
I'm just getting started. And so is the bounty-gate story, which continues to slam down on the New Orleans Saints with more force than any NFL hit you've ever gotten out of your seat about.
Jonathan Vilma, whom I always heard was a classy, hard-working player who did things the right way, offered teammates $10,000 to take out Kurt Warner and/or Brett Favre.
He was far from the only one. Here in Washington, the Redskins are being investigated for a bounty program. They're not the lone other team.
Sickening.
And yet, despite everything that's come out about this troubled league, the American public eats it all up. That is why 365 days a year, we are inundated with NFL chatter. ESPN's Mike & Mike in the Morning radio show doesn't go a day without a segment on some NFL story. I'm not kidding.
There hasn't been a SportsCenter in the last two years devoid of an NFL mention — and there won't be one anytime soon. ESPN now employs more NFL analysts than there are players in the league (slight exaggeration ... slight).
The NFL Draft is on the verge of becoming a national holiday and will be a week, and then a month, before we know it...
There are certain things I love about football, and the NFL in particular. The game takes so much smarts. The average fan has no idea how many schemes and plays each player has to memorize. I certainly can't imagine having to remember all that while lining up across from a guy who wants to rip my head off. And when a play is executive by all 11 guys, it's a beautiful, harmonic thing to watch.
Quarterback is the most difficult position in all of sports, and those at the top of the profession make it look easy. That's incredible, and a sports feat I'll always appreciate.
And then there's the parity. No league has had more of it than the NFL, and it creates some great drama each season and particularly in the playoffs.
But, I'm sorry, that's not enough for me to be able to forgot about football's evils and just sit back as a fan and watch.
Every week, we hear about more and more players involved in lawsuits against the league for not properly protecting them against concussions. Of course, Commissioner Roger Goodell has implemented strict measures to try to prevent players with concussions from playing, but there's nothing he can do from stopping concussions from initially happening (who knows if there's an evolutionary helmet out there that would make a noticeable difference).
As I've learned more about the traumatic effects this injury has on players soon after their careers are complete, I'm turned off. I can't just enjoy the players while they're on my TV screen and forget about them when they retire into a life of shrinking brain size, mental illness and, sadly, sometimes suicide.
Other studies are widespread that simply detail the trauma caused by repetitive hitting from football — not even to the head. Again, this leads to players losing their minds after the glory days are over.
Am I boycotting the NFL? Am I going to stop watching football completely?
No. Absolutely not. I'm too big of a sports fan, too much of a lurch for drama, to do that. But now I watch and see the game through a different lens. I cringe each time I see a huge hit (often now illegal). I wonder how that hit might affect that player 10, 12 or 15 years from now. And I wonder how many of those hits were, just a few years ago, ordered up through bribery by the other team.
It's America's most popular sports league. And in the past 12 months, it has survived a protracted work stoppage, a bounty scandal (still ongoing), an increasing number of former player lawsuits and tragic deaths.
It dominates our airwaves.
But these days, I usually change the channel or hit mute.
It's simply too much for me to stomach.
