Tim Duncan’s final game won’t involve 60 points on 50 shots. He won’t give a speech ending with “Fundamental out!” The Spurs likely won’t even win their greatest player’s finale, which almost certainly won’t be in the regular season. Heck, it could be Thursday night. In Oklahoma City. With fans too busy celebrating to even acknowledge the greatest player of his generation walking off a court one final time.

That image becomes more real by the day. Duncan has been invisible — or, occasionally, worse — for much of this second-round playoff series against the Thunder, which the Spurs now trail 3-2 entering Game 6. San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich always said Duncan, the 40-year-old he has coached for 19 seasons, would retire when he no longer felt he could contribute on the court. Playoff averages of 4.4 points and 4.8 rebounds a game might lead one to believe that day is near.

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Talk to anyone around the Spurs, though, and you get a different picture, one of a former MVP whose skills and athleticism have slipped but who still provides a huge value on and off the court. “He’s one of the best teammates you can imagine,” Popovich said. So Sporting News earlier this season asked a few of his teammates why that is, what Duncan does to make them and the Spurs franchise better.

“On the court, it’s pretty obvious: I’ve been part of a lot of wins because of him,” said Matt Bonner, who has spent 10 seasons on the Spurs. “Off the court, to me, he's a quintessential lead-by-example guy. He's not flashy. He's down to earth. He's incredibly professional and hard-working. He always puts the team first.”

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The specific stories don’t come easily. Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, the other two members of the Spurs’ Big Three, are more vocal and more charismatic. Duncan defies the notions superstars handle spotlight. He’s won five championships and more games with one team than any player in NBA history.

But the Spurs are defined by their culture of unity, intelligence and dedication. Duncan defines that culture, as much or more than even Popovich. Without Duncan’s previous 18 seasons, LaMarcus Aldridge probably never signs with the Spurs last summer. The rafters probably would be barren. Perhaps Kawhi Leonard doesn’t quite fit in as seamlessly in a world less adjusted to quiet stars.

“Most teams normally have (role players) that do those little things,” second-year Spurs forward Kyle Anderson said. “For us, it just happens to be our two best players get that stuff done. That's what makes Timmy so special, getting rebounds, fighting on the floor at 40 years old in regular-season games.”

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Anderson has a story. He had a rough showing in a road loss during his rookie season, when he wasn’t playing all that much to begin with. The Spurs didn’t get home until the early morning hours. Duncan noticed his youngest teammate struggling. “We’ve got another one coming up,” he told Anderson. When a 15-time All-Star is delivering those words, they stick.

“Never get too high, never get too low,” Spurs guard Danny Green says of Duncan’s message to him early in his own career. “There's going to be nights like this (loss), and there's going to be nights where we play really good.”

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That’s why, if the Spurs do win Thursday night to force Game 7 — back in San Antonio, where they’ve won 43 of 46 games this season and postseason — Duncan will have a major role. It doesn’t matter much if he repeats his Game 5 performance of five points and three rebounds, a game when Thunder center Steven Adams abused Duncan on several plays with his remarkable athleticism.

“What he still gives us is a base from which to operate,” Popovich told reporters recently. “He’s smart enough to try and do fundamental things, like rebound, block shots, change shots whenever he can, be in the right place on the court, help teammates understand what’s going on. He’s great for LaMarcus and David (West), helping them understand where to be on the court. He’s just not going to score the way he used to score. Everything else, he tries to do it as well as he possibly can. It’s still very effective and very important to our success.”

Duncan doesn’t talk about his future. He’s a very private person, and if you ask his teammates what they expect, the answer is the same: “I have no idea; you’d have to ask him,” not that there's any use.

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But that doesn’t mean his teammates don’t think about it. Ask Green, who came to the Spurs as a discarded NBA Development Leaguer, what he’ll miss most, and the answer is simple: “Just being around him and having him in the locker room.”

Bonner showed up two months before training camp after signing with the Spurs in 2006, hoping to get some offseason workouts in and maybe make a good first impression on a franchise that already had won three titles. He was joined by mostly younger players, those hoping to make the cut for training camp.

Duncan was there, too. He always is. Until he isn’t.