From "what ifs" to what is

The Spurs return to the postseason brings fresh grief, but new conduits for memory and connection.

There’s a chance I knew who Tim Duncan was before Michael Jordan. Okay, that’s probably not true. Even now, thirty years after Jordan’s domination of the NBA, I had to have known who the GOAT was. What I can say, with absolute certainty, is that Duncan was a bigger name in my household. Despite the Space Jam sheets that adorned my childhood twin bed for a few years (most of which came from my love of Looney Tunes rather than an admiration for basketball), MJ’s cultural synonymity couldn’t hold a candle to the sport’s best power forward.

My father, like most people, was a series of contradictions. He was an upstate New Yorker who came down to North Carolina to attend Wake Forest. He somehow loved both the Jets and the Giants. He hated the Yankees so much that he became a Red Sox fan. The sport I remember us watching the most together was golf; we never missed a Sunday at Augusta. But for all that, he loved college basketball. I’m sure a large part of that was because he attended a university in the ACC.

Growing up in Greenville, SC, we were in close proximity to Wake Forest. We’d drive up for all kinds of games, whether it was sitting on the hill to watch the football at Groves Stadium (I know it’s the ‘Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium’ now — but my god what a mouthful) or Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

It was there, in the LJV, where I remember seeing Duncan play for the first time.

Photo credit RVR Photos

I don’t quite recall the particulars, but he left an impression. I begged my father for his jersey, getting one that looked quite similar to this practice penny instead. I think he knew I wouldn’t wear it that much and opted for a cheaper version. Ultimately, he was right; it hung on the back door of the bathroom I shared with my two younger sisters as a shirt I’d wear to the neighborhood pool as my interests shifted away from sports and toward video games during my middle school years.

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I was more obsessed with Wake Forest basketball than I ever would have been with the Hornets. Logically, our proximity to Charlotte should have meant I claimed that NBA franchise as my ‘local’ team. That’s certainly how I ended up as a Panthers fan. But Duncan’s dominance meant that when the Spurs eventually drafted him, they became my team. Texas, and by extension San Antonio, might as well have been Mars to me. Yet, they had Duncan, and therefore, were the only NBA team for me.

We didn’t have cable growing up, so I relied on my Dad to tell me when they’d done well or won something. I remember hearing about the ‘03, ‘05, and ‘07 championships. But as I moved into college at the University of South Carolina, SEC football became my sporting passion, and I devoted my free time to that instead.

In 2011, my Dad passed away from a brain tumor. It was a quick decline. He told our family at the end of January of that year. By early October, he was gone. I was 21. The same drives we’d make to North Carolina to watch Wake Forest games were now replaced with treks to Durham to some of the best oncologists around. Dad definitely gave all the Duke doctors a hard time; I wish I could remember some of the more specific jabs, but I compartmentalized so many of those hospital visits away. To this day, I still hate going into a hospital. It’s never good news.

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It’s June 15, 2014. I’ve started to come out the other side of this seismic loss. Things are still hard to process, but I do feel like I can breathe again after years of feeling like I’m drowning. I’m a year out of college — I took a victory lap after changing my major from business to public relations — and I’m still hanging around Columbia. I’m with my buddy Joey, and we’re at an anniversary party for a local recording studio called The Jam Room. At some point, he and I wander across the street to Lavanderia Wash World. A handful of televisions hang from the ceiling as Game 5 of the finals is well underway. Joey glances up and quickly remarks that he wants the Spurs to beat the Heat to stop LeBron James from getting three straight. We make our way back and forth across to Lavanderia a few times throughout the night as the team battles back from the early deficit. Kawhi Leonard puts on a clinic as that classic, Spursian ball movement allows the Big Fundamental to lift the Larry one last time. I think about my Dad as the seconds tick down to their victory.

A few months later, I moved to DC for a change of scenery. On my first night in town, I head to a now-defunct bar that’s the first in a rotating series of South Carolina bars. But this one, named Red Light, is in the shadow of what’s then called the Verizon Center. It dawns on me that seeing a professional sports team is much more accessible than it’s ever been. I start paying more attention to the sport, taking in a few games from the Warriors’ dominant 2015-2016 season before committing to watching basketball more consistently.

I remember the exact temperature of the heat inside the Mega Bus that carried me back to DC the July Fourth weekend when I read a story about the Warriors landing Kevin Durant. The Leonard injury is still looming large as I realize the Spurs won’t be competing anytime soon. The Claw’s eventual trade shatters. I watch him hit the shot in Toronto after falling in love with how consistent a midrange artist DeMar DeRozan is. I’ve started to become invested in a way that I never had before.

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It’s June 30, 2022, and I’m on my way to see a press screening for Thor: Love and Thunder, a movie that I try to talk myself into enjoying more than I actually do. Seconds before I get in the car to drive to Silver Springs, the Spurs trade Dejounte Murray to the Hawks. I get to McGinty's Public House, where my buddy (and Celtics fan) Chris is waiting for me. He asks how I’m doing. I immediately yell an expletive. I look at my Twitter mentions, and someone tells me to keep an eye on the bigger picture, that Victor Wembanyama is the grand prize that may await at the end of this pain. Losing Murray after trading away Derrick White feels like too much. The next season, I watch Gregg Popovich trot out lineups that include Romeo Langford and Blake Wesley. The team goes 20-62.

The season comes to an end, and I find myself in a similar place. It’s June 22, 2023, and it’s not only my mom’s birthday, but the night of the NBA draft lottery. My stomach is in knots. I intentionally attend a press screening, once again in Silver Springs, for the live-action The Little Mermaid remake. Outside of The Jungle Book live-action remake, I hadn’t brought myself to see any of these other blatant cash grabs reimaginings. I decide to see it as a 10% professional obligation (so I’m not talking out of my ass when broadly assessing these sorts of movies), and 90% as a reason not to stress about the lottery. I tell Chris that he can push through my do-not-disturb if we make the top three.

About a quarter of the way through the movie, I stand up to go to the restroom. No texts on my phone, which immediately disappoints, but puts me at ease that I don’t have this hanging over me for the rest of the night. Only, I quickly realize the draft hasn’t even started yet. Now I’m keenly aware of what’s happening. I go back into the theater.

Eventually, my phone buzzes. I stand up and try, as quickly as I can without disturbing my fellow critics, to make my way down the stairs so I can look at my phone. I round the corner to a text from Chris that says we’re in the top three. Before I can even respond, he tells me we’ve won. I step out into the hallway, and my body curls into a silent scream not unlike this moment from A Star is Born.

The first person I want to talk to is my Dad.

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I miss a lot about my Dad. I think the thing I’m saddest about is that I never got to spend time with him as an adult. Not having him here for the big moments of my life is, of course, extraordinarily difficult. But what’s almost worst is not being able to talk to him about the most mundane things in the world. And there’s nothing more importantly unimportant than being able to talk about sports. I wonder sometimes whether he and I would have connected more about the Spurs over the last 15 years if he had been around.

My journey into basketball and the Spurs has been a tremendously rewarding one. I remember watching highlights of those Duncan teams and how beautiful the ball movement was, or how heartbreaking it was to watch the Ray Allen shot. Sharing all of that with him could have been so exciting and brought a new depth to our relationship. We didn’t talk much about sports when I was a kid; I had more of a passive interest, and I wonder what might have been if we’d had a chance to connect on it.

I wonder what he would have thought about this Spurs team. Would he have loved Keldon Johnson’s tenacity? Luke Kornet’s admirable goofiness? Devin Vassell’s sharpshooting? Julian Champagnie’s steadiness? Castle’s defensive prowess? The way Dylan Harper drives through traffic? How De’Aaron Fox pilfers the ball away from an opponent like he’s Danny Ocean? How everything Victor Wembenyama does reshapes the landscape around him? Mitch Johnson’s leadership? Would he have come to visit in DC to catch a game with me when the Spurs were here? Would we have taken a trip to San Antonio together? Hell, would we be at one of these playoff games together, getting a chance to share in that experience?

Photo credit Sam Owens

One of the things I learned early on after his passing is not to play the what if game. If you spend too long doing that, it will consume you, dragging you into the water until you’re completely and utterly submerged by grief. I can’t help but wonder what he and I might have said to one another about how utterly special this team is, and how poised they are to contend for (hopefully) a long, long time. And how introducing me to a generational talent some thirty years ago now puts me in a position to watch a game I love with a team that’s on the verge of something magical.

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In the immediate aftermath of his passing, I received a lot of my father’s possessions. His watch, some of his ties, a few of his sport coats (I was too tall for a lot of his stuff), and more random things. At a certain point, those gifts dry up, and you’re left with the past.

It’s rare to receive something new from someone long gone. In these last few weeks and months, I’ve thought a lot about how this Spurs fandom — and all passions, really — are some of the last gifts I received from my Dad. Perhaps that’s an overly romantic way to consider it, but why not?

I think of him when my (now) wife surprised me with a trip to a Spurs game for my thirtieth birthday, and when one of the concession workers hears my story about us visiting and decides to generously gift me one of the Fiesta medals she’s wearing. I think about him throughout those fledgling Pop years, when we win the draft lottery, when we draft Wemby, when he has his first home game, when I finally see him in person — on and on it goes. I’m thankful my Dad introduced me to this sport, to Tim Duncan. Saying that my Dad lives on in every Spurs possession sounds insane, and yet, it kind of does.

That’s the thing about what sports can do. It can create these ethereal, otherworldly connections between you and people you don’t even know. There’s no need to play the what if game here; I know Dad would have been beyond excited for what’s to come with this Spurs team, and how surreal it would be for us now, thirty years after first learning about Tim Duncan, to be on the verge of watching history possibly repeat itself.