Inside The Spurs

The Next Tim Duncan? Nikola Jokic's 'Familiar' NBA Legacy is Just Beginning After Winning Title

Nikola Jokic has jumped through many hoops to be as successful as he is today, though NBA fans may have seen a player like him before, just in San Antonio threads instead of Denver ones.

Matt Guzman

The Next Tim Duncan? Nikola Jokic's 'Familiar' NBA Legacy is Just Beginning After Winning Title
The Next Tim Duncan? Nikola Jokic's 'Familiar' NBA Legacy is Just Beginning After Winning Title /
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San Antonio Spurs fans might be outraged to find out that another Tim Duncan could be developing before their eyes. 

To them, Duncan was a once in a lifetime talent. A player who could not be stopped, but who was never the first to take credit. He was the definition of a team player, and he put the Spurs on his back en route to five Larry O'Brien trophies. 

Duncan was special, and to the credit of Spurs fans, there won't ever be a player quite like him to step foot on an NBA court. 

"[Duncan] is the most real, consistent, true person that I've ever met in my life," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said of the 15-time All-Star. "All he cares about is being a great guy, living his life [and] doing the right thing. It kind of leaked into basketball [because] that was his job for so long."

The bank shot that Duncan popularized truly became his own, as did the city of San Antonio and its supporters. He changed the NBA and how effective a power forward-center could be for a team. He wasn't flashy, nor was he arrogant. He just wanted to win. 

While there won't be a player exactly like Duncan in the league again, Denver Nuggets fans may have noticed that just about all of what was listed above sounds familiar. 

Their superstar center, Nikola Jokic, is most of those things. He's notorious for his uncanny stat lines, but at the same time, his noticeably "boring" responses when it comes to his accomplishments. 

Jokic is the player who lost his Finals MVP trophy just a day after earning it, but never forgets to lace his wedding ring into his basketball shoes before a game. He's the player who wanted nothing to do with his team's championship parade, instead wanting to just "go home."

But Jokic is also the player that has taken over the NBA in the last few seasons. He's made triple-doubles seem "easy" and guarding a "non-athletic" center seem impossible.

He's arguably the best player in the world, and is on pace to become one of the greatest NBA centers of all-time when he's finished — which isn't anytime soon. And now with a title in hand, Jokic's legacy just got that much greater.

Sure, he's not Tim Duncan. But he's pretty damn close. 

“I never coached Tim Duncan,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said before Game 1 of the NBA Finals. “But just from coaching against him and hearing stories [from] those that have been around him, Tim Duncan was a selfless superstar. 

"I look at Nikola Jokic in the same vein."

Malone's assessment makes sense. Jokic was always more about his team's success than his individual success, despite winning back-to-back MVP awards.

"I never play basketball to win individual awards," Jokic said. "So [the] MVP is just something that the people and media are trying to make a story out of. So, if it happens, it happens. I don't play for that. Like I said, as long as we're winning I'm happy." 

After the Nuggets' finals victory, it's safe to say that Jokic was more-than happy. He brought his city the championship it had been hoping for since joining the league, though he didn't do it alone. 

Throughout this year's playoffs, Jokic's right-hand man was Jamal Murray. The two had been an established dynamic duo in the past, but injuries set Murray back after their Western Conference Finals appearance in 2020. 

The guard missed nearly half of the 2020-21 season after suffering a torn ACL against the Golden State Warriors, which turned into missing the entirety of the season after. 

Both years, the Nuggets made the playoffs, but little accompanying noise. Murray's absence allowed teams to focus on stopping Jokic with little repercussions, as the Nuggets lost in the first and second rounds, respectively. 

This year, with Murray back in full force, Denver proved what it was capable of. Much like the Spurs did when they avenged their 2013 Finals loss to the Heat by beating them in five games to win their fifth NBA championship.

Duncan had a pair of teammates in Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili that helped San Antonio past its opponents, most times with ease. But like Jokic, Duncan was always the most reliable scorer through the post, which even then wasn't always the case.

“I wasn’t really a post player coming into college,” Duncan said early in his career. “I didn’t have a whole lot of post moves, a whole lot of post game, but I became that and I put on some weight, (and) they put me down on the block, they taught me the post moves." 

Jokic's story was similar. He wasn't highly recruited entering the league — famously drafted during a Taco Bell commercial in 2015 — and didn't develop into "The Joker" until his third and fourth season, when he began to notch his triple doubles. 

Jokic's ascension in the last five years ... has brought the big man, gloriously, back to the center of NBA discourse," The Athletic wrote. "[He] doesn’t spend every waking moment on basketball courts hurling 3s just because he’s getting more efficient from deep." 

"He’ll shoot the shot when unguarded, but he doesn’t hunt it," the site continued. He attacks the spaces where the game dictates he should. He destroys single coverage in the paint when teams don’t double him ... [and] in a different era of NBA ball, Duncan did the same." 

By the end of his career, Duncan had changed the NBA. He made the center-power forward position not only possible, but successful, paving the way for players like Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo — both of which earned back-to-back MVP distinctions — to become superstars, though Jokic isn't focused on that. 

"To be honest, I don't think about [my legacy] that much," Jokic said. "I'm just playing. My focus has never been on records or whatever the media is putting on me. I'm just trying to win a game and play every game to win. It's as simple as that." 

Simple could be all it is to Jokic, but to the rest of the NBA, his level of success is anything but. Either way, Jokic has said he models his game after Duncan and other Spurs greats, and following their blueprint, he was successful on his own. 

The difference now is that he's brought that success to the rest of his teammates and his city ... sound familiar? 

San Antonio was forever changed when Duncan and the Spurs won their first title. That turned into five, and later one of the biggest success stories of all time in the league, all starting with a center from the Virgin Islands whose dream wasn't even to play basketball. 

It will be looking to find that success once more when Victor Wembanyama enters the scene, but it may be a few years before that success is fully realized. Until then, Spurs fans can look at Jokic — the league's next Tim Duncan — as a source of hope and even nostalgia at the legacy that their Hall-of-Fame center left behind. 

Now, Jokic now looks to continue to be unstoppable, much like Duncan was in his own right, and carve out his own legacy separate from Duncan's. 

And whether the two players' paths are similar or not, there is success to be found at just about every part of it, from beginning to end. The one main difference, however? 

Jokic isn't nearly finished yet. 

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Matt Guzman
MATT GUZMAN

Matt Guzman is a sports journalist and storyteller from Austin, Texas. He serves as a credentialed reporter and site manager for San Antonio Spurs On SI and a staff writer for multiple collegiate sites in the same network. In the world of professional sports, he is a firm believer that athletes are people, too, and intends to tell stories of players and teams’ true, behind-the-scenes character that otherwise would not be seen through strong narrative writing, hooking ledes and passionate words.

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