With the Oklahoma City Thunder set to kick off their second-round playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs, Kevin Durant is well aware of the challenge of going up against a guy who probably sleeps in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber over the summer.
Ahead of Saturday’s series opener, the seven-time All-Star expressed his deep admiration for the ageless wonder known as Timothy Theodore Duncan.
“Tim Duncan could play until he’s 90,” Durant said per Tom Orsborn of the San Antonio Express-News. “It’s not about him scoring 20 & getting 10 rebounds, it’s just his presence.”
For Duncan, who just turned 40 last week, he has managed to fend off the kiss of Father Time for years by using his boundless basketball IQ and unparalleled spatial/positional awareness to compensate for his age-related decline in skill, athleticism, and mobility.
While Duncan only averaged 8.6 points per game and 7.3 points per game during the 2015-16 regular season, he still remains one of the Spurs’ three most important players and will be a handful for the Thunder to match up with in these Conference Semifinals.
Durant has been vocal in his praise for Duncan in the past, and, heck, if a fully-wrinkled, pearly-white-haired Duncan is still blocking shots and throwing up jump hooks in the year 2066, we know where we heard it first.
Image Credit: Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports
H/T NBA Reddit
