By Lee Strawther
The Sporting Tribune
The John R. Wooden Award will celebrate it’s 50th anniversary this season. Leading up to the award ceremony on April 10, 2026, The Sporting Tribune in partnership with the Wooden Award and the Los Angeles Athletic Club will highlight past winners of the Wooden Award and the Legends of Coaching Award.
The list isn’t short when it comes to naming the best power forwards to ever play the game of basketball, but whenever the topic does arise you can bank on Tim Duncan’s name being at or near the top of every list.
Timothy Theodore Duncan was born on April 25, 1976, and raised on Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. The son of Anguillan parents, “The Big Fundamental” as he is affectionately known, is considered by many to be the greatest power forward of all time and one of the greatest players in NBA history in general.
Duncan initially aspired to become a competitive swimmer like his sister, Olympian Tricia Duncan (U.S. Virgin Islands, 1988 Summer Olympics) but took up basketball at age 14 after Hurricane Hugo destroyed the island’s lone Olympic-sized pool.
Tall and lanky in stature, he overcame an awkward stage to become a standout at St. Dunstan’s Episcopal High School, averaging 25 points per game as a senior. His play attracted interest from several universities including Hartford, Delaware and Providence, but he ultimately chose Wake Forest University, where in no time he became a household name.
Duncan’s style of play was simple yet effective, combining an array of low-post moves and a soft touch around the rim with a tough defensive mindset.
“I’ve never gotten too high or too low. It only messes you up,” he would say of his even-keeled mental approach to not just the game, but life.
Duncan was chosen to represent the U.S. in the 1994 Goodwill Games, and in a rare move at the time, he bypassed the 1996 NBA Draft and returned to the Demon Deacons for his senior season where he finished with career high averages of 20.8 points, 14.7 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game. He won Defensive Player of the Year for a third consecutive season, nabbed First-Team All-American honors for a second time, and was a unanimous pick for both the Oscar Robertson Trophy and Naismith College Player of the Year Award.
Additionally, Duncan was again voted ACC Player of the Year and took home the prestigious John R. Wooden Award as the NCAA’s top overall player.
Upon graduating from Wake Forest with a degree in Psychology, Duncan was chosen as the first overall pick in the 1997 NBA Draft by the San Antonio Spurs.
The Spurs were coming off an injury-plagued season where All-NBA center David Robinson — a No. 1 draft pick ten years earlier—missed a good chunk of the year, and they finished with a 20–62 record. The following season, however, Duncan and Robinson became known as the “Twin Towers”, (not the first duo to wear the monicker) a nickname earned for their talents on the defensive end
Duncan more than lived up to expectations that first year, starting in all 82 regular season games, averaging 21.1 points, 11.9 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 2.5 blocks per game, while earning All-NBA First Team honors. His defensive prowess had him named to the NBA All-Defensive Second Team and ultimately he was named NBA Rookie of the Year.
The Spurs qualified for the 1998 playoffs as the fifth seed but lost in the second round to the eventual Western Conference champion Utah Jazz.
During the lockout-shortened 1998–99 season the Spurs finished the season with a 31–5 run and defeated the New York Knicks in five games in the NBA Finals, bringing San Antonio its first-ever NBA championship with Duncan being named Finals MVP.
By his retirement at the end of his 2015-16 season he had become a five-time NBA champion, two-time NBA MVP, three-time NBA Finals MVP, 15-time NBA All-Star, and the only player to be selected to both the All-NBA and All-Defensive Teams for 13 consecutive seasons.
More uniquely, he would be one of the few to play his entire career, 19 seasons in his case, for not only one team, but for one head coach, Hall-of-Famer and recently retired Greg Popovich.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he once said of his loyalty and commitment to the Spurs. “You can print that wherever you want to. I’m here and I’m a Spur for life.”
Popovich may have summed up Duncan best, though. ”You don’t see Timmy beating his chest as if he was the first human being to dunk the basketball, as a lot of people do these days,” he once said. “He’s not pointing to the sky. He’s not glamming to the cameras. He just plays, and we’ve seen it for so long it’s become almost mundane. But it’s so special that it has to be remembered.”
We definitely remember coach.