Tim Duncan spent his entire 19-year career with the San Antonio Spurs, winning five NBA championships, 15 All-Star nods and two league MVP trophies. But a free-agent decision he apparently came close to making — but eventually decided against — could have altered the entire course of his legacy — for better or worse.
Tim Duncan’s what-if Magic superteam might have been thwarted by Doc Rivers’ plane rules
Bruce Bowen says had Rivers agreed to let Duncan take his family on the team plane, he was as good as gone to Orlando.
On Wednesday, Duncan’s former teammate, Bruce Bowen, shared a story during the Fox Sports Los Angeles broadcast of Spurs vs. Clippers about how close he thinks Duncan came to leaving San Antonio for Orlando during the summer of 2000.
In his story, Bowen said it was an answer from then-Magic head coach Doc Rivers to one of Duncan’s questions that stopped him from joining Tracy McGrady and Grant Hill to form what might have been one of the most dominant Big 3s in basketball.
“When Tim went out to meet with Orlando, he asked this question,” Bowen said. “Can family come on the flights to some games? And from what I understand, [Doc Rivers] said no, and that’s where he lost Tim Duncan.”
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!
After averaging 20-plus points, 11-plus rebounds and two-plus blocks his first three seasons with the Spurs, Duncan entered free agency for the first time. The Magic were atop his list of destinations.
Imagine that: Tracy McGrady, Grant Hill, and Tim Duncan — on the same damn team — with Darryl Armstrong, Bo Outlaw, and a rookie Mike Miller. Without Duncan, the Magic lost to the Bucks, one game to three, in the first round of the playoffs.
With him? They’re probably going to the Eastern Conference Finals, at least, and maybe, just maybe, that loaded Magic team beats Allen Iverson’s 76ers:
“These were special players, All-Star, elite players that were going to be available,” longtime Magic president Pat Williams said, via Tim Casey of Sports on Earth. “We cleared the decks and were determined to make inroads … That was our big thrust to get back on the stage that we had lost when Shaq departed.”
Duncan never signed with the Magic, though, because — well — his family couldn’t get on the team plane. We know how the story goes from there.
San Antonio strengthens its standing as a perennial powerhouse and championship contender with Duncan as its stability beam. The Spurs rattle off four more championships in the post-David Robinson era, with Timmy D. winning two Most Valuable Player awards along the way.
And most importantly, Duncan etches his standing in the history books as one of the two best power forwards of all time, possibly the best ever depending on how you feel about Karl Malone. Whether the PF position still exists in five years is a debate for another time, but that’s an accomplishment few will ever dream of dreaming about.
We’ll never know what could have happened if Tim Duncan would have signed with Orlando. T-Mac, Hill, and Duncan would have made for quite the Big 3, but there’s no telling what the shelf life on either of Timmy’s co-stars would have been given both of their careers were shortened due to injury.
I think if you ask Duncan (and Spurs fans), he’s completely OK with the way things panned out. But man, it would have been fun to watch that team play.
Tim Duncan probably was the NBA’s most consistent star ever
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