Tim Duncan didn’t write an expansive letter in Sports Illustrated or a heartfelt essay on the Players’ Tribune. He didn’t even provide a quote for his official retirement announcement. But now, he’s finally spoken out for the first time since the news broke Monday, with a letter posted on the Spurs’ official website. It’s exactly what you’d expect from someone as spotlight-averse as Duncan: not doing any more than is required, but getting the job done with brutal efficiency.
Tim Duncan statement pic.twitter.com/W5VxFAmev0
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpears) July 13, 2016
The whole thing runs for 139 words in total. It consists of little more than an efficient list of people he wants to thank and things he’s thankful for, without any filler or flowery language. And it’s signed “Tim.” There are no frills, it just gets its job done as effectively as anything else could have.
In other words, it’s the perfect encapsulation of who Tim Duncan was as a player and why we love him. Anything else — a retirement tour, a press conference, any way of drawing more attention to himself than is necessary — would have felt inappropriate.
The only thing that would have better epitomized Duncan would have been if he had simply not been on the Spurs’ training camp roster that will be released in September. But this will work.
