Tim Duncan takes one for the team – NBA Feature
Tim Duncan is one of the best players in the NBA and rightfully, was the third highest paid athlete in the NBA last season with an annual salary of $21.5 million.
The veteran forward has earned his way onto that pedestal, having worked hard throughout his career to win four NBA championships with the San Antonio Spurs, while picking up most valuable player honours twice as well.
The man with titles, honours and rings under his belt has been the face of the Texas based franchise for over a decade now and in a show of support for his team, he took a huge pay cut when he signed a contract extension with them
for the next three years.
Duncan was all set to become a free agent this summer, but after the Spurs were defeated by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals this year, he said that he would be a Spurs for life.
And in the weeks that followed, he quietly agreed to a three year contract with the Spurs, and guess what, the money was not in the range of 20 mills, but only $9.65 million in the first year. Duncan took the pay cut so that the
team could go after other free agents and still remain within the salary cap. Three players on the Spurs team will now earn more than Duncan next year.
Mike Monroe of the News-Express writes:
“By accepting an $11.5 million cut from the $21.15 million salary he earned last season, Duncan enabled the club to re-sign its most coveted free-agent players, add 2009 draftee Nando De Colo and still drop below the NBA’s projected
luxury-tax threshold for next season. A two-time NBA Most Valuable Player, the 36-year-old Duncan will see his salary rise to $10.36 million for the 2013-14 season.”
Although the NBA rules bars players under contract from renegotiating the terms of the contract or taking a pay cut, Duncan was a free agent signing a new contract and could do so.
It is another proof of the kind of guy Duncan is, not asking for media attention while he does these things. For a man who is regarded as one of the best power forwards to have played in the NBA, Duncan is a very humble person
with his feet firmly fixed on the ground.
Tags: