5 best moments from Tim Duncan’s jersey retirement ceremony

Here are the top five moments from Tim Duncan’s jersey retirement ceremony with the San Antonio Spurs Sunday night.

Tim Duncan’s jersey retirement ceremony took place Sunday night after the San Antonio Spurs’ home win over the New Orleans Pelicans, and it was well worth the wait.

With one of the 10 greatest NBA players of all time calling it a career over the summer, we’ve had plenty of time to write our odes to a five-time NBA champion who helped build the Spurs into the most stable organization in all of professional basketball.

Sunday night gave us a chance to hear similar testaments to Duncan’s greatness, only this time, they came from those closest to him, including Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, head coach Gregg Popovich and Timmy himself.

In case you missed any of it, or in case you want to revel in the last time we’ll see Tim Duncan in the public sphere for quite some time, here are the five best moments from the night No. 21’s jersey was hoisted into the rafters at the AT&T Center.

5. Parker’s Standup

For those of you unfamiliar with the Spurs, Tony Parker is a pretty funny guy. As it turns out, his speech for Duncan was as funny as it was heartfelt.

Parker went into detail about how hard it was to play for such a demanding coach, praising Duncan for the professional way he always handled it.

“When you play for Pop, you have to be very strong mentally,” Parker said before trailing off with a smirk.

Popovich, the most woke coach in the NBA, enjoyed the barb and even gave Parker a fist bump, giving the outside world an inside look at how close these Spurs legends really are.

Parker also told the crowd about how he could tell when it was time to get Duncan the ball. Unlike most superstars, who would tell their point guard when they were wide open or verbally demand the ball, Tony said Timmy would just give him a look:

Parker’s inside stories and jokes about Pop and Duncan were amusing, but he made sure to mention Timmy’s status as a “superstar plus plus.”

You can listen to Parker’s entire speech here.