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We did not trust him at first. I do not mind telling you that. We loved Tony Parker, of course. How could you not? He was handsome, he was young, he was clearly a talented basketball player; that's all you're hoping to be a young player your team just named. But we do not trust him. Because he could not shoot. It was the blow on him. The Spurs recruited him in 2001 and everyone – when I say "everyone," I really mean "me and the people I knew and who were talking about the Spurs at the time" – in was really excited, then 10 or 15 games in his career, we were all like, "Wait. Wait. Does this guy do not know how to shoot, or what's going on here? "
So we did not trust him. And this criticism followed him during the first years of his career. (A statistic: Tony shot less than 36% on shots over 12 feet in his first four years in the league.) And the best example to mention is where the Spurs played the Nets in the final 2003.
Recall that it was just before Jason Kidd, the leader of the Nets and one of the best guards in the league, was about to become a free agent. And more than that, he was about to become a free agent that the Spurs had openly coveted. Thus, one of the central conversations around this Spurs-Nets series was that it was a confrontation between the type that the Spurs possessed and the one the Spurs wanted. And in Game 6, with a chance to finish the series and win everything in San Antonio, Gregg Popovich pulled Tony out of the game. It was the second half and he had some turnovers and some failures early in the third quarter. Pop then replaced him with veteran Speedy Claxton, who played very well and finished the game for the Spurs. It was Tony's first championship, and he had to watch from the bench the Spurs move away from the Nets after sitting down. (They went on a 19-0 run to win the game, series and title.)
But again, it was in 2003. In 2004, the Spurs had lost to the Lakers in the second round, but Tony had played well enough to become a key figure in the series – and also the last third of the Big Three. The Spurs had tried to build around Duncan. (I remember that the Spurs beat 2-0 and Rick Fox – the mean, nasty Rick Fox – was asked to slow Tony down because he was eating it alive, and Fox said some thing like, "We want to knock him out, but you can not hit what you can not catch." It was the coolest thing that someone ever said about 39, a player on the Spurs.)
In 2005, Tony became indispensable and was a first-rate clutch player. (Two things here: First of all, everyone remembers that Robert Horry hit the 3 to steal game 5 of the final against the Pistons and tip the series in favor of the Spurs, but what most people forget that Richard Hamilton had a chance to win the game Secondly, the Spurs lost games 3 and 4 in Detroit, in part because no one could do what Tony could do when he was replaced. Popovich, in a rare emotional case, explained at a press conference after one of the defeats that everything seemed to collapse when Tony sat down for a quick break and the Spurs had to find a way to give him a little rest without the wheels falling.)
In 2007, Tony was the most useful player in the final (when he won, almost all Spurs fans were like: "Tony imagined this shit, and all your bitches will die now"). In 2013, he was heading to another MVP in the final before Ray Allen decided to eliminate everything. And in 2014, he was a champion four times, undeniable and unwavering, having been subject to a conditional immunity granted to a very small number of players.
If I had to put a date on it, I'd say it's somewhere between the 2005 and 2007 titles that Tony Parker became indisputable, and that someone you knew was not only able to play in the deep waters of the last round of the series, but also seemed excited about it and seemed to enjoy the process of pulling an opponent from shore safety and drowning it. This is what he has become in his career. This is the arc of his trajectory. He began as a fast young guy like lightning who, Popovich, felt compelled to sit on the bench at the greatest moment of the season. also on to inform his teammates what to do.
Tony Parker retires. After 18 seasons in the NBA, he retires. He wore a Hornets jersey over the last year, but he's always been a Spur and will never be, like George Gervin (who played his last season as Bull) or Sean Elliott (who played a season like a piston). He is the first of all times in Spurs 'attendance, second in Spurs' history, second in Spurs history in minutes, third in Spurs history in packed baskets, fifth in fourth from the history of the Spurs to the marked points. I'm sure more substantial articles on Tony Parker and his place in basketball history are coming up. (The second youngest player to win a title! One of the 37 players in NBA history to have won four titles or more! One-third of the three Grand Prize winners in the history of the modern leagues!). But for now, be aware that Tony Parker is retiring, and he is doing it as trust the Spurs fans, which is the greatest compliment I can do to anyone who has played basketball.
Here is a video of Stuart Scott interviewing Tony after this 2003 title. Scott asks Tony to talk about Speedy Claxton, watch the end of the game from the bench and Jason Kidd. And Tony is perfect in all his answers (this is the variety "I just want to win and I hope now that we won the championship that the Spurs want to keep me"). He was already a champion. We should probably have trusted him earlier.
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