San Antonio Spurs general manager jokes about trading Tim Duncan
By Sam Richmond
The idea of the San Antonio Spurs trading Tim Duncan seems ludicrous. Duncan has been with the organization his entire career, helped bring them five championships and he will go down as one of the top-10 players in NBA History.
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So, thankfully (and obviously) when Spurs general manager R.C. Buford brought up the idea of trading Duncan on draft night, he was joking.
From CSN Philly:
"The tongue-in-cheek revelation was made by Buford late Thursday after he was asked if anyone other than UCLA forward Kyle Anderson was their top choice. The Spurs selected the 6-foot-9 forward with its first-round pick, No. 30 overall.“Yeah, Wiggins and Parker were No. 1 on our board,” Buford said.So, the Spurs attempted to trade up?“Yea, but just didn’t figure out a way to get it done,” Buford said.(…)So, neither team wanted Duncan?“Exactly,” Buford said, laughing. “No matter how badly he wants to play for (Philadelphia coach and former Spurs assistant) Brett Brown, we just couldn’t make it work. If Philly could have gotten one, we would have traded him to Brett.”"
Even though this was all in good fun, one almost feels bad for Duncan just thinking about the idea of him being a member of the tanking 76ers.
Thankfully, we’ll never have to see that. Duncan will be back with Tony Parker and the gang next season and the 38-year-old will certainly retire as a Spur when he calls it quits.