Rankings the best NBA nicknames of all time

9. The Big Fundamental

Of course, the lone season in which the Spurs haven’t had a winning record since 1988 (!) occurred when The Admiral suffered a broken foot early in the 1997 season, leaving San Antonio to scramble on the backs of players like Avery Johnson, Vinny Del Negro and a 37-year-old Dominique Wilkins, of whose time in a Spurs uniform we shall never speak again.

The Spurs eked out 20 rotten victories that year, a lone blip against the standard of excellence to which we’re all accustomed, but it did have a benefit: San Antonio won the 1997 Draft Lottery, putting them in position to draft published author in the field of psychology, and Wake Forest big man, Timothy Theodore Duncan. A four-year standout and two-time ACC Player of the Year, Duncan immediately fit alongside David Robinson to form one iteration of the popular Twin Towers trope that sometimes goes awry in the NBA, but theirs was the real deal. Duncan and Robinson won twin titles together, and Duncan collected consecutive NBA MVP awards in 2002 and 2003.

Tim Duncan played until he was 40, and he was effective for every one of his seasons. He made an All-NBA team in his age-39 season and was a real-life, legitimate Defensive Player of the Year candidate the same year. His commitment to his craft was unquestioned, having only picked up basketball after developing a fear of sharks when training as a teenage swimmer in Saint Croix, and his mild-mannered personality was only surpassed by his truly world-class skill on the court. When he retired, it was typically quiet occasion, one that simply got the job done. That’s Tim Duncan.