Are There Any Timmy Duncans Left?

So as we witness this Kawhi Leonard debacle in San Antonio–I ask the question are there any Tim Duncans left in the agent driven world of the NBA?

It’s sad to see this happening with Greg Popovich and the Spurs. It truly is because they appeared to be the one organization in all of pro sport who were immune to the axiom that the NBA is merely nothing more than an agent/super star driven league.

So much for that naïve thought.

But here we sit watching this sad drama where Kawhi Leonard not only doesn’t play, but he doesn’t even accompany his team and sit with them as they go through the process of being eliminated by the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the Western Conference Playoffs.

Kawhi Leonard doesn’t have time because he’s with his people in New York going through the process of forcing the Spurs to unload him this season to a team who has a coach who won’t ever get on him. I guess Kawhi’s people are his uncle/agent and some doctors who won’t confirm what the Spurs’ medical staff has said about Kawhi’s quad injury.

Agents and money drive all of pro sports, but especially in the NBA because if one superstar is landed you can build a team around that one star fairly easily with the aid of a smart GM.

But we live in an age where loyalty doesn’t really mean much across the landscape of pro sports.

We live in an NBA age where the concept of awarding an NBA Coach of the Year award is somewhat of a joke. So who’s this year’s NBA Coach of the Year I ask aloud?

Steve Kerr’s quadruplets of stars have publicly admitted they were burned out after only being together for 18 months. LeBron has had better years than this one as an NBA coach. Pop looks like a dinosaur. Billy Donovan’s team didn’t appear to be all that concerned about winning games until the first 79 games were in the books. The jury is still out on Mike D’Antoni until we see what they do in the playoffs. And Portland’s Terry Stotts’ team has cratered a bit coming down the stretch.

The answer is there isn’t such a thing as an NBA Coach of the Year any longer. There should be the MVP Award, the NBA Executive of the Year Award, and the NBA Agent of the Year Award. The coaches are just there to give the appearance that there is some reason for their outdated existence in the NBA world. You know.. kind of like where robots are going to start driving for Uber.

But if forced to pick the one player left standing in the NBA who’s career path most resembles that of Tim Duncan to date…I could only come up with two players to date. Russell Westbrook and maybe Anthony Davis in New Orleans.

But primarily Russell Westbrook as he’s the only star in the NBA who in my estimation would sign a long term deal to stay in Oklahoma City once the constraints of the NBA’s collective bargaining allowed him to freely do otherwise.

Russell Westbrook stayed when he didn’t have to and displayed loyalty to Clay Bennett, Sam Presti, and the Oklahoma City fans.

So while I never saw Tim Duncan dress like Russell Westbrook there are some other common threads between the two.