It was April 2016. Tim Duncan was a couple of weeks away from turning 40 and a little over a month from playing what would be the final game of his career. The Spurs were playing a Denver Nuggets team featuring a green rookie from Serbia named Nikola Jokic. As Duncan had done to many younger players in his career, he had a field day, schooling Jokic in the post to the tune of a season-high 21 points on 9-15 shooting.
While the Nuggets won that game — a rare loss for those franchise-best 67-15 Spurs, albeit one that came in Denver after the Spurs had played in Golden State the night before — Jokic couldn’t help but come away impressed with how easily Duncan worked around him despite his lack of mobility by then.