sorry if already post.
http://www.hoopsworld.com/article_14589.shtml
By Emmett Shaw
for HOOPSWORLD.com
Oct 15, 2005, 10:16
WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina – Spending a couple of days in this beautiful Piedmont town, did I find out what makes Tim Duncan tick? Not exactly, but maybe scratching the surface will do. I did find something else just about as hard to locate. Sitting beside me during the Spurs’ 95-91 preseason loss to Washington was a rare college professor who thinks G.W. Bush is neither a tragedy for the country, nor a buffoon, nor the frontman for Evil Inc.
This economics teacher at Wake Forest says the economy is booming, and that recent government policies have had little effect for better or worse. It’s unknown at this time whether the national debt will bite this or a future generation in the gluteus, but deficits are historically inevitable for countries that fight wars, which we do every decade or two. That’s his educated judgment.
Most of our talk was basketball, the NBA, ACC, and specifically Wake Forest. My new friend didn’t directly shed light on what makes Tim Duncan so strong mentally. But he did say this about Tim the person. “I think he enjoyed college. I used to see him walking on the campus and he was friendly with students. He had various friends, not just the other players. I think he was very happy here.” As long as a rough exam isn’t bearing down, to walk the green campus of Wake Forest defines being happy.
It’s grounds are entirely under a canopy of soaring trees. These forested parts have perhaps a hundred species of trees like pines, oaks, poplars, birches, sycamores, and ashes. We’re talking perhaps America’s coziest campus in a very cozy town of 200,000. You need to know that Wake has only about 4,000 undergraduates! It was THE PERFECT place for a baller from little St. Croix to be. Above all Tim had promised his mom he would finish college.
But you just come to Wake. Here you’ll see immediately his sacrifice wasn’t that much to stay here for four years. It might be the perfect place for anyone to be. Winston-Salem’s Forsyth County (pop. about 300,000) is tucked off the beaten path. It’s away from Raleigh, Charlotte, and Greensboro up in the foothills of the Appalachians. The growth is very slow and steady.
They’ve been losing just a bit of the 18-34 demographic, but they just added the new Dell plant that has begun to build the company’s products for the Eastern U.S. So more young people will be staying for that. The county by far exceeds the state and national percentages of high school- and especially college-educated residents. The place is tremendously friendly. Drive around the city and county; you’ll not see a gated neighborhood. Winston-Salem is also home to Krispy-Kreme.
While here I learned better that Tim Duncan is a simple, regular guy.
“He would definitely socialize,” said Hayden Jennings, who says he’s met Tim a few times. Hayden works for the biggest and best live music club and promotion company in the area, Ziggy’s. “Tim used to come out here once in a while, but the coaches didn’t let any of the players out a lot, at least during the season. For the real popular bands that all the college kids liked, he’d be here.”
“I used to go watch the team play whenever I could when he played. There was such a buzz here back then,” said Jennings kind of wistfully, sitting as he was a block away from the Joel Coliseum. “He was well-liked; always had a lot of friends. There are no bad Tim Duncan stories. They just don’t exist,” Hayden, himself a Wake grad, explained.
Across the street from the Coliseum, people at Freddy B’s Sports Bar and Grill talk of how Tim doesn’t talk any junk, and how so many players do. There’s the story of a bad game Duncan had against Duke. A big man for the Blue Devils named Greg Newton spoke after the game of how Tim wasn’t all that, how Newton could control him. Tim was told of the remarks and simply said Newton was the best player he’d ever seen. By the way, if you know where Greg Newton is playing today, drop me a line!
Freddy B’s was host to many a fraternity and sorority party. Freddy’s challenge at such events is to make sure underage drinking doesn’t happen. One night there came a party in which Tim and his group was back in the corner booth. All seemed well for quite some time until Freddy himself eyed Tim downing a shot. I went over and said, “Tim, everybody in the whole world knows you’re 19! You can’t do a shot!” Duncan simply replied, “What shot?” Everyone at Freddy’s still laughs at the words, “What shot?”
Freddy’s story sort of summarizes Duncan’s dilemma. He wants to be a regular guy. But everyone knows who he is, so he really can’t be. Within cir stances, Tim can just hold on to being as plain a person as possible. No making a big deal of his having made it big. Duncan just wants to go his own way after the games so he can be himself. Surely Wake Forest and even San Antonio are the best basketball places for him. But if Wake was in the NBA, I bet Tim could go for that. Still, if you’re a player on Duncan’s level, you have to go where the big games are, and that’s the NBA.
Sitting around at Freddy’s, I still wanted to get to the subject of Tim’s strong mental powers we see as he competes, about how Duncan became a stronger player by not “skipping steps”, mastering the NCAA level of the game. We got to talking about who are the best teammates, something that will come up in a college town when talking sports, but too rarely on an NBA internet message board. I asked someone, if he was a good enough player, whose team he would rather play for – Shaq’s or Kobe’s? The patron nodded his head and said Shaq. I asked Freddy B., who just smiled and shook his head. “I’ll take Tim Duncan.”
Freddy must have been refering to Tims Free Throw.All seemed well for quite some time until Freddy himself eyed Tim downing a shot. I went over and said, “Tim, everybody in the whole world knows you’re 19! You can’t do a shot!” Duncan simply replied, “What shot?” Everyone at Freddy’s still laughs at the words, “What shot?”
Duncan
First 2 preseason games 10-10 from the FT line
Last 2 preseason games 3-8 from the FT line
Looks like it took Tim the first 2 games to get the rust out.
When will the madness stop????
hahahaha!
I refuse to believe that TIM DUNCAN drank any alcohol when underage. I refuse!
This story reminds me of when my sis and I saw Tiger Woods out and about and drinking. I think he was 20 at the time, but no one said a word.
one of the weakest articles I've seen from Emmett.
Guys Timmy is never going to be a great free throw shooter, we all just need to accept this as fact. If he can go out this year and shoot it at a 70% clip be happy with that and move on, it could be worse what did Shaq shoot last year like 48%.
Great? 90%? Probably not, but if he gets comfy with the new stroke, he may well be an 80% FT shooter again. I think with the new shooting coach, you won't see him drift into those long funks anymore.
that was just some guy going around town collecting Timmy stories to report.... excepet he didn't find as many as he thought he would get... so he had too pad it wiht way too much filler about the area and the scenery.. blah blah blah.
this article in does not help one to understand duncan better.
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