What if Tim Duncan acted normal?

If Tim Duncan was a normal basketball star, NBA history would be totally different. Anyone else who had Duncan’s level of individual success in college would have jumped to the NBA as soon as possible.

Duncan could have been the top pick in the 1996 NBA Draft or even the 1995 NBA Draft had he chosen to leave Wake Forest after his sophomore or junior season. Had he done so, the hypothetical ripple effect is wild. Duncan entering the NBA in ’96 would have changed the futures of everyone from Allen Iverson to Steve Nash to Kobe Bryant and their respective draft teams.

But Tim Duncan had unusual priorities as a player, a student, and a son, and because of that, he made an extremely unusual choice that, to his credit, played out even better than he could have hoped. Let’s go inside Tim Duncan’s unique, history-changing decision to stay in school.