LOOK: Remembering how incredible Tim Duncan was when he was at Wake Forest
Before Tim Duncan had a great career with the the Spurs, he was a dominant force for the Demon Deacons
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For as incredible as Tim Duncan's career was in the NBA -- all 19 years and five NBA titles with San Antonio -- it speaks to his decades-spanning greatness that people still frequently recall and reflect on his four years at Wake Forest.
On the day of his retirement, let's do that once more.
Because Duncan signaled the last of an era, a rare player who was both undeniably special but also opted to stay in college for four years when he could've easily left and been a No. 1 draft pick after his sophomore or junior season. There have been other tremendous four-year college players in the 19 years since Duncan left Wake Forest, but No. 21 did it right as the high school-to-NBA fad was blooming and soon to dominate the league's draft cycle for the next decade.
Duncan was the last four-year star at a major conference to be taken No. 1 in the NBA Draft. (Kenyon Martin is the only player since to play four years of college and go No. 1, but he was not a national college star until the end of his junior season at best, whereas Duncan was in the conversation to be a No. 1 pick by the time he played 50 college games.)
Duncan was a two-time ACC Player of the Year and a three-time All-American. He swept all six major, national player-of-the-year honors in his senior season of 1996-97. He won back-to-back ACC titles with Wake in 1995 and 1996. Those league titles were the first the program won since the 1960s. Wake Forest reached the NCAA Tournament every season he was there; the Demon Deacons reached the Sweet 16 when Duncan was a sophomore and the Elite Eight when he was a junior. Duncan won 97 games while at Wake -- the most of any player in program history -- back when teams played 25 or 26 regular season games, not the 30 or 31 scheduled these days.
Here's a glimpse at some of his biggest moments wearing black and gold.