On Halloween night in 1997 at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, I had a courtside seat for the beginning of the Tim Duncan era. Little did I know that despite leaving childhood almost four decades earlier, I was in store for a treat that lasted most of the next 20 years.
At the time, I was on the Denver Nuggets beat for the Denver Post, years before I moved to the San Antonio Express-News in February 2004. That required me to focus on Denver's rookie point guard, Bobby Jackson, and two other 1997 first-round picks on the Nuggets roster: Tony Battie (No.