{"id":75352,"date":"2025-06-04T02:55:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T02:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/75352\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T02:55:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T02:55:14","slug":"tony-parker-reveals-the-exact-moment-he-earned-tim-duncans-respect-with-the-san-antonio-spurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/75352\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Parker reveals the exact moment he earned Tim Duncan\u2019s respect with the San Antonio Spurs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tim Duncan<\/a>, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili formed an unforgettable Big Three with the San Antonio Spurs that dominated the NBA for more than a decade. But things didn\u2019t start off easy for the French point guard, who had to put in serious effort to win over the two-time league MVP.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first time I saw Timmy, I was like, man, I was kind of impressed,\u201d Parker<\/a> admitted in a January 2025 interview on the Knuckleheads podcast. \u201cObviously, I knew he was a superstar\u2014multiple All-Star, MVP of the All-Star Game\u2014I knew he was the franchise, basically. So, I knew that if I wanted to have a chance to be the point guard of that team, I had to earn Tim\u2019s respect.\u201c<\/p>\n

Tony arrived in San Antonio<\/a> after being selected with the 28th overall pick in the 2001 Draft. At the time just 19 years old, the point guard had played two standout seasons with Paris Basket Racing, earning Best Young Player and Most Improved Player honors in the French league\u2014but he still had to prove himself in the NBA.<\/p>\n

Looking back on those early days with the Spurs, Parker acknowledged that Duncan didn\u2019t make it easy for him. \u201cHe made it tough on me like the whole first year,\u201d said the guard. \u201cPeople think I joke when I say this, but it\u2019s true. He didn\u2019t talk to me the whole first year. I don\u2019t think he believed that a little Frenchie could be his point guard for the next 10 years, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tony<\/p>\n

Tony Parker and Gregg Popovich<\/p>\n

That\u2019s surprising considering Parker made an immediate impact on the team. In fact, during his rookie season he played in 77 of 82 games and started in 72 of them. That showed how much head coach Gregg Popovich valued him from the start\u2014but Duncan held a higher standard.<\/p>\n

\"San<\/p>\n

see also<\/p>\n

San Antonio Spurs legend Tony Parker names the greatest NBA player of all time<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not until I played great against GP (Gary Payton) in the playoffs that he finally talked to me,\u201d recalled the French star. He was referring to the first-round series of the 2001\u201302 Western Conference playoffs, when the Spurs defeated the Seattle SuperSonics 3\u20132. In that series, Parker started all five games and averaged 29.5 minutes per game, putting up 17.2 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 2.6 assists.<\/p>\n

According to Tony, that was the turning point in how Duncan viewed him. \u201cHe was like, \u2018Man, if he can play good against Gary Payton, I think we have something,\u2019\u201d the guard speculated. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t back down. Mentally I was ready, my dad did a great job to prepare me and I was ready for my rookie season and my first year with the Spurs, Timmy won MVP of the NBA<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

That year, the Spurs were eliminated in the semifinals by the Los Angeles Lakers, but it laid the groundwork for the following season. With Ginobili now part of the squad, San Antonio went on to win the championship in the 2002\u201303 season, and Tony Parker firmly established himself as a key piece of the team, playing in all 82 games and forming the ideal partnership with Duncan, who won league MVP for a second straight year and also claimed Finals MVP honors.<\/p>\n

SurveyCan Victor Wembanyama reach the same level of importance for the Spurs as Tim Duncan once did?<\/p>\n

Can Victor Wembanyama reach the same level of importance for the Spurs as Tim Duncan once did?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili formed an unforgettable Big Three with the San Antonio Spurs that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3797],"tags":[7,6,969,474,4075,4074,534,1674,2968],"class_list":{"0":"post-75352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio-spurs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-san-antonio","11":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","12":"tag-sanantonio","13":"tag-sanantoniospurs","14":"tag-spurs","15":"tag-tim-duncan","16":"tag-tony-parker"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114622845644709357","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}