At Home With A Storm - Duncan At Work

[duncan228]

Sorry if this has already been posted.
I checked and didn't see it.

Wasn't there some conversation about whether Duncan contributed to Katrina?
This doesn't answer that question directly but I thought it was a good reminder that Duncan's life was changed by a hurricane and I would say it's a safe bet that he's done more than what he did this weekend and what his Foundation does.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/b...n.370dc81.html

Buck Harvey: At home with a storm - Duncan at work

Buck Harvey
Express-News staff writer

NEW ORLEANS — Tim Duncan practiced Saturday inside the New Orleans convention center. He's never had to camp outside of it.

He's also never had to signal for help from a roof, and he's never had to wait five days for FEMA to think that water might come in handy. But Duncan knows hurricanes, and one changed his life.

Maybe that's why, when the NBA paraded its stars to various work sites this weekend, attempting to help New Orleans as well as promote its own image, something that NBA staffers were saying to each other made sense.

"Anyone notice how much Duncan wanted to work?"

Duncan managed to have some fun, too, because playing with David Robinson always has been. When the two 7-footers teamed up with Becky Hammon to win a shooting contest Saturday night, Duncan and Robinson picked up where they left off. They shared a trophy.

But that's part of the disconnect about this weekend. The NBA had its dunk contests and opulence, and at the same time the league wanted to portray itself as a civic partner.

The league helped post-Katrina New Orleans just by bringing the All-Star Game here. But the "NBA Cares" program has always had the sincerity of a political-campaign photo op, and a marketing idea added to that. Then the league mailed work gloves to the media, when a house in the 9th Ward could have been rebuilt for the price.

The gloves were to promote a Day of Service, which involved putting millionaires to work with cameras nearby. A picture of Jason Kidd on ESPN.com summed up the so-called service; standing on a ladder, Kidd was surrounded by, among other devices, a boom mic.

But some athletes like to be involved, and Yao Ming was. His job Friday was to lay sod at a school, and when he arrived at the site, it was raining. His handlers told him not to worry, because they had a plan.

Run out for two minutes, get a quick picture and we're-outta-here.

Yao chose to stay a while. He didn't put in an eight-hour day, but he lifted sod, and he tried to be helpful, and the NBA also got what it wanted. He was pictured with muddy gloves and muddy shoes on the front page of the local New Orleans newspaper.

Chances are, a lot of these guys want to do something, which is where their foundations come in. Duncan has one of those, too. His program in San Antonio affects about 1,200 kids.

But hurricane damage hits close to home for him, because one hit his home. Late in the evening of Sept. 17, 1989, while Robinson prepared for his rookie NBA season, Hurricane Hugo came to St. Croix.

Bill Duncan sat in a bedroom, monitoring a house he had long ago fortified as a handyman. His family, including 13-year-old Tim, huddled in a bathroom made of cinder blocks for five hours.

Duncan remembers losing only a large window. His roof stayed intact, as did a Christmas present given to him by one of his sisters the year before. The backboard and pole, planted deep into the soil by his father, remained stable for further use.

But fishing boats were tossed into the streets. Power was out for six months, and the hospital was so damaged that Duncan's mother, Ione, had to endure cancer treatments in a tent.

As for the other damage that changed a franchise in South Texas: St. Croix's only Olympic-sized pool was destroyed, pushing a teenager toward another sport.

Duncan says Hugo wasn't Katrina. Still, there were response issues, and "there's still stuff there that has not been rebuilt."

What he learned: "You work around that, accept that, and you move on."

Duncan has. He provided grants to buy equipment for a local hospital, to re-establish a Red Cross chapter in St. Croix and to aid the United Nations in restoring Virgin Islands communities damaged by hurricanes.

That's why New Orleans wasn't just another stop for him. "I think I had a different perspective," he said Saturday, "on what people have gone through."

With that, Duncan went to his assigned site Friday, where he helped build a playground along with fellow players such as Chauncey Billups. Duncan put in some effort, as the NBA staff noted, albeit without the need for new apparel.

He's been wearing his own work gloves for a while.

[ClingingMars]

As for the other damage that changed a franchise in South Texas: St. Croix's only Olympic-sized pool was destroyed, pushing a teenager toward another sport.

Thanks for the article, duncan228. I always click on your threads because the stories are always interesting

I am a fundamentalist Christian and I don't mean to start an argument here. But I couldn't help but notice this line. I fully believe that God has a plan for everyone, Christian or non-Christian, and that everything that happens in this world happens for a purpose. I believe that God intended for TD to come to the Spurs for his own reason, and used this hurricane's damage for that purpose. I might be crazy, I might even be wrong, but that's my opinion.

-Mars

[some_user86]

I'm an atheist and I believe it was fortuitous chance. He had to build his success with hard work, but it was evident he would've embraced greatness either way (as evident by the fact that his sister is an Olympic compe or in swimming).

[duncan228]

He had to build his success with hard work...

Duncan's work ethic is intense.
Even now, at this stage of his career, he's the first in the gym and the last out.

I also believe that he would have been an Olympic swimmer if Hugo hadn't destroyed the pool and his mom hadn't died in that same year. She was his biggest fan and the story goes that when he lost her swimming wasn't the same for him.
The two events together took his already present compe ive nature to basketball.