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Kori Ellis

11-06-2004, 08:21 PM

Duncan consistently finds ways to amaze

By Terry Brown
NBA Insider

Somewhere between the Kevin Garnett coronation, the Detroit Pistons revolution, and Shaquille O'Neal's first merengue lesson, Tim Duncan anonymously slid back into the practice gym and became the absolute best basketball player on the planet so far for the 2004-05 season.

He didn't try any new tricks like behind-the-back passes or reverse dunks. He didn't dye his hair or add any body ink or pierce any extremity. Nor did he demand a trade, fire his coach or get arrested for jay walking.

He practiced his bank shot. Then he practiced it some more. Sometime in between, he worked in a few free throws. He did what Tim Duncan does.

In case you missed it, the Spurs power forward took 17.1 shots per game last year. He took 17.1 shots per game the year he won his second MVP award and his second NBA title. Over his career, he's taken, well, 17.1 shots per game.

To put that in perspective, Tracy McGrady averaged 23.3 shots per game last year.

Garnett averaged 19.6 while also leading his team in rebounding, steals, blocks and minutes.

Kobe Bryant averaged 18.1 with Shaq in the lineup.

Peja Stojakovic, a player who took 6.8 three-pointers per game, averaged 17.1 shots per game.

Duncan, the most-polished player on the planet, was taking the same amount of shots per game as some Eastern European sharpshooter.

And speaking of that career, he's played seven NBA seasons, made seven All NBA first teams and seven All-Defensive squads. He's won two league MVP awards and two NBA titles. The surprising aspect is that Duncan has averaged only 22.8 points per game over that career and never more than 25.5 in any one season. Those numbers are good, perhaps, great, but not immortal. They are not fitting for a guy described by the first sentence of this paragraph.

Heck, Baron Davis averaged 22.9 points per game last year.

Allan Houston averaged 22.5 the year before that.

Antoine Walker averaged 22.1 the year before that. And they've got no All-NBA first team citations. There's not one all-defensive team, NBA MVP or championship among them.

But that's just the Duncan we've come to know and love and wonder what was really going on behind that stoic face and calm demeanor.

Where other players dealt in quantity, he preferred quality. Instead of cacophony, he strived for consistency. He's never led the league in scoring or rebounding but over the last seven seasons, no player has more double-doubles.

So why would anyone ever expect any no-look passes or fancy reverse dunks from him?

We expected 17.1 shots per game. We expected more double-doubles. We expected him to ease into the season unnoticed, a reputed slow starter, warm up and unceremoniously push his team deep into the playoffs.

So in his first preseason game of the new year, he scores 16 points and grabs eight rebounds. It's preseason. That;s typical for any returning All-Star. Two games later, he scores 18 points and grabs 11 rebounds. Two games after that, he scores 15 points and grabs nine rebounds.

By the end of preseason, he was averaging a very Duncan-like 18.6 points and 7.6 boards as a warm up for regular season No. 8.

What we didn't notice was that he was scoring those points and grabbing those rebounds in only 25.6 minutes per game.

He was shooting 63.2- percent from the field. November's notorious sleeper was absolutely on fire coming out of October.

But this was Duncan. We didn't see any highlights on SportsCenter. He didn't dunk over any Frenchman over the summer, didn't show up at the MTV Music Awards and sit behind J-Lo and in front of P-Diddy while singing back up to Ciarra.

Besides, Duncan always starts slow and by the time the first regular season game of the year rolled around on November 3, we knew what to expect.

He missed his first shot against the Kings.

He also missed his third. Over the next six minutes of the first quarter of the first game of the season, he never took another shot.

He made a few free throws but after two fouls, he was forced to the bench with one basket on 33-percent shooting.

A typical Duncan start. Right?

He returned about three minutes into the second quarter and soon dunked the ball. He made a hook shot. That was followed by another hook and a turnaround jumper.

Something different was happening.

A finger roll followed, an offensive rebound and put back and we were seeing a different Duncan.

In 7:20 of play in the second quarter, he scored 12 points on 6 of 6 shooting and the Spurs went on to whip the Kings, 101-85. Duncan finished with 30 points and 14 rebounds -- another double-double. He also connected on 64.7 percent of his field-goal attempts.

But here's the crazy part.

He's scoring more, exerting himself more, impacting the game as a whole even more. But look right there in the boxscore, to the right of his name, behind the points, in front of the rebounds.

Exactly 17 shots in the game.