Tim Duncan for MVP...

(...Most Virtuous Player.)

I know it's getting a little out of hand with the sports coverage around here, but how can we resist stuff like this? Sportswriters, follow the preceding link for a classic lesson in jockstrap-carrying. It's a prerequisite course, taught by Adrian Wojnarowski.

When these playoffs are over, everyone will know the MVP in this league. It won't be Dirk Nowitzki,

(actually, it will be -- and already is -- but that's neither here nor there)

nor Steve Nash, nor Kobe Bryant. The league MVP will be Tim Duncan. Again. And good luck trying to get Duncan to talk about it. Anyone else, and they would be telling you all about how they've been constantly overlooked in San Antonio, how it was a crime that Denver's Marcus Camby was voted the league's defensive player of the year, and that how despite declarations made elsewhere, no one has ever truly dethroned him as the best player in the sport.

Anyone else? Anyone else would be telling you how "they" deserved defensive player of the year? Is everyone in the NBA delusional, too?

Marcus Camby: 70 GP, 11.7 RPG (9.3 DReb), 1.2 SPG, 3.3 BPG
Tim Duncan: 80 GP, 10.6 RPG (7.9 DReb), 0.8 SPG, 2.4 BPG

How do those numbers indicate a "crime" has been committed? Camby had a great year and stayed relatively healthy. Duncan was good, too. He would win the award if you got extra points for blocking shots politely.

And... how exactly is Tim Duncan overlooked in San Antonio? Somewhere in a small Utah hotel room, Beno Udrih is rolling over in his tiny, urine-stained cot and dreaming of the days when he actually got to play basketball.

"If it's possible to be the most appreciated and the most taken for granted,

(which it's not),

that's what Tim is," Spurs assistant coach P.J. Carlesimo said. "We just assume every day that he's going to dominate both ends of the floor, take and make big shots. When we don't win, he's going to say, 'It's on me.' When we do win, he's not going to say anything."

This is why we can't wait to see Tim Duncan in the fucking NBA Finals. "He's not going to say anything."

"He's so consistent, so unassuming, you tend to forget how special he is."

This exact same line has appeared in columns about certain "special" athletes since the advent of movable type. Does Tim Duncan have a calm, steely gaze? Derek Jeter, anyone? How is it possible for us to "forget" how special these athletes are, Adrian, when you keep reminding us every time you're out of column ideas?

Duncan has never had his coach fired. He's never had a public feud with a teammate. When he could've been the No. 1 pick as a sophomore, he stayed four years at Wake Forest. When he had a chance to leave San Antonio for bigger, splashier markets as a free agent, he re-signed to stay here.

When he could have just left his sopping wet pair of compression shorts in the bottom of his locker to fungalize and germinate, he draped them on a coathanger for me to carry off as a token of his good will.

Tim Duncan does nice things. But what's so horribly wrong with a guy who signs elsewhere as a free agent? I mean, maybe Tim's family is begging him to get out of San Antonio because they hate it there, and he refuses because he likes having a personal athletic-cup-carrier loitering around outside the locker room. Wouldn't that make him selfish?

If he skips the draft and tears a ligament his senior year, wouldn't that make him an idiot? Anyway.

Think about this: In his decade with San Antonio, when have you heard a grouse out of that locker room? Ever heard a player complain about minutes? About how the coach uses him? About how little he's appreciated?

This is, like, insignificant. How many teams have real, recurring chemistry problems, off the top of your head? A few. How many of those problems actually affect team performances? Fewer.

And why are we anointing Tim Duncan the king of the playing-time police when he's the one playing 38 minutes a game? Shouldn't we be talking about the guys who actually have something to complain about, but aren't? Someone like... oh, I don't know...

Around the Spurs this season, most believe that Manu Ginobili would prefer to start, but he's accepted his sixth man role this season without a word.

This is because of Tim Duncan's grouse-preventing gaze. Just ask assistant coach P.J. Carlesimo.

Outside San Antonio's locker room Sunday afternoon, Carlesimo nodded his head and simply pointed back toward those concrete walls where Duncan was dressing.

"When he's naked," Carlesimo said with one eyebrow raised, "people don't complain about minutes."