Buck Harvey: Young Tim: A birth that crushes hope
Web Posted: 10/30/2005 12:23 AM CDT
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/c...n.ca4e46c.html
San Antonio Express-News
The Spurs' best player won't like this breach of his privacy, but the following news is too significant to ignore.
This just in: The Duncans gave birth this summer to a bouncing, healthy 29-year-old named Tim.
Young Tim doesn't say much. Newborns are like that. But when he bends his knees and ankles, he feels, well, young.
It's huge news, as well as the last thing the rest of the NBA wants to hear.
After all, isn't the aging of Duncan the one hope the other franchises have?
Few see any other weaknesses within the Spurs. "The best organization in the NBA," is what ESPN the Magazine called the Spurs this month.
Sports Illustrated used a few different words to express the same. And then there are the predictions for this season. A dozen ESPN analysts were asked where the Spurs would finish, and all 12 said the Spurs would win the Western Conference.
Winning a fourth le will not be as automatic as the forecast suggests. Stuff happens. And when trying to pinpoint how the Spurs could lose this season, most stop where the Spurs almost stopped last season.
Health. Isn't Duncan proving to be brittle?
In one of those Internet fan polls, more than 55 percent said the biggest key to the Spurs winning the championship was Duncan being healthy. And a scout told Sports Illustrated the same:
"Tim Duncan has missed a total of 29 games in the past two years. He'll be 30 at playoff time, and he's becoming more injury-prone because he plays so hard and takes a beating. So where do the Spurs' rivals find hope of beating them? They have to hope Duncan wears down."
Last season fostered the hope. Then Duncan bent in Detroit in the regular season, only to come back just in the time for the playoffs. He went down with a sprain of his other ankle during the postseason, and at times he wasn't sure which ankle hurt the most.
Considering the minutes he's put in thus far in his career, is this a sign of aging?
Duncan does suffer from wear and tear. All of them do. Several years ago, the Miami Heat team doctor studied NBA players, and he found that nearly all of them, almost 100 percent, had some type of abnormality in their knees.
It's what happens when athletes run on hard wood every day for a decade or more. But the doctor also didn't know what to make of the data. The MRIs revealed there were issues in the knees, but the players didn't usually feel much pain.
Jack Henry, a former Spurs team doctor, once did similar work on the ankle. His study found the majority of NBA players had loose bodies, spurs, etc., in their ankles.
The X-rays, again, looked dramatic. But when asked, most of the players said they felt fine.
It's part of the body's ability to adapt, and Duncan is likely part of this, too. He's had a knee worked on, and he's suffered severe ankle sprains. But at his preseason physical this fall, he said his body felt better than it has in years.
Part of that is about an exercise regimen that tries to increase flexibility and strength. Duncan also goes through bottles of glucosamine-chondroitin, and he lost some weight this summer to take stress off his joints.
But what happened in private this summer meant more. Then, after his wife, Amy, gave birth to their daughter, Duncan stayed at home as he rarely has been able to.
In the summer of 2004, he endured the Athens Olympics. The summer before that, the Spurs won the le playing the second-most games in NBA history, and then he went to Olympic qualifying in Puerto Rico. And in 2002, he played the most minutes of his career, averaging more than 40 a game.
This summer, he was able to unpack his bags and let his ankles repair and his body heal. That's a reason he's looked livelier than his teammates this preseason. Jermaine O'Neal knew something was going on after Duncan went for 21 points against him in the first 13 minutes of a game.
Duncan isn't bulletproof. If Amare Stoudemire, younger and stronger, can fall, then Duncan could, too.
But at 29, Duncan is also just entering a time that Gregg Popovich thinks is the prime for most NBA players. If Duncan avoids bad luck, and if Popovich continues to hold down his minutes, Duncan will slow down, all right.
In about three or four years.
It's been postulated in this forum that the best Spurs' offseason acquisition would not be Finley, Oberto or NVE but rather a healthy Tim Duncan.
Say the Spurs got a healthy Tim Duncan this summer as well as one who could shoot 75% from the line...hmmm....
Watching Finals games 5 and 7 last night and this morning on NBA TV, it was painful and surprising to see what bad spells and stats Tim had.
Missed 5 FTs in the 4th qtr of of Game5 when one FT would have won the tie game.
Missed the put-back at the buzzer to leave the game tied.
Tim shot 37% in Game7 (horrible for big man, only Tony shot worse, Spurs shot 43%) and had 3 TOs in the 4th qtr, where he also took 2 or 3 really bad shots. Manu shot really well.
BUT!! The Spurs still won the le. Amazing.
I agree totally that a rested and 100% Duncan who we've already seen in pre-season is much more important than getting Michael or Nick.
Last edited by boutons; 10-30-2005 at 02:28 PM.
It's the Samson effect....
Timmy... KEEP THE FRO!!!!
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