Marcus Morris was 8 when Tim Duncan broke into the NBA on Oct. 31, 1997. Marcus Morris also happens to be the oldest Pistons starter. He has vague memories of Duncan at Wake Forest, but he’s probably alone among his teammates who’ll take the court for tipoff at San Antonio on Wednesday night.

Duncan has 1,373 career NBA starts, or 513 more than the Pistons starting five of Morris, Tobias Harris, Reggie Jackson, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Reggie Jackson combined. That’s 6½ seasons of starts more than Stan Van Gundy’s starting five.

“Daa-yum,” Morris said when hearing the numbers. “Yeah, that’s crazy. Tim Duncan is probably the best power forward ever to play the game. Probably one of the winningest players ever to play the game. Nothing but respect for that guy.”

Stan Van Gundy let out a bemused chuckle at the Duncan-vs.-Detroit comparison.

“That’s not hard to believe. I mean, he’s been at it a lot longer than our guys combined,” he said. “And he’s been a great, great player in this league.”

Van Gundy beat Duncan, now in his 19th season, to the NBA by two years, coming to the Miami Heat as an assistant for the 1995-96 season. Duncan was in his seventh season with the Spurs when Van Gundy got his first head coaching gig with the Heat. That was also Tony Parker’s third NBA season; it’s now his 15th. It was Manu Ginobili’s second season. If Ginobili – with 908 career games under his belt – was starting instead of Green, the numbers would grow even more lopsided.

“Them guys have played together forever,” Morris said. “Anytime when teams know each other like the back of their hand, it’s easy. They know where guys are going to be at. Everybody knows what to do. Everybody knows their role, so no one’s sticking out.”

Parker also has more NBA starts – by 189 games, or nearly 2½ seasons – than Detroit’s collective total. The Spurs starting five of Duncan, Parker, LaMarcus Aldridge, Kawhi Leonard and Green has 3,706 career starts, or an average of 741. The least experienced Spurs starter, Leonard, has 73 more career starts than Detroit’s leader in that category, Drummond.

Leonard, at 24, is younger than Morris and Jackson. All three – plus Harris – were products of the 2011 NBA draft, Leonard after two years at San Diego State, Morris and Jackson after three college seasons apiece, Harris after his freshman year.

But the average age of San Antonio’s starters is 30.8, seven full years above Detroit’s 23.8.

Their combination of talent, experience, continuity and superb coaching and organizational leadership has added up to a dynasty.

“Seventeen straight 50-win seasons,” Van Gundy said. “That’s mind-boggling to me.”

As amazing as it is that Duncan, who’ll turn 40 during the first round of the playoffs, remains a force this deep into his career, perhaps the more remarkable achievement is that San Antonio has successfully bridged the gap to the next generation already.

“They had their big three, who are still really important, but they’ve transitioned to Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge being their two main guys,” Van Gundy said. “Those guys have accepted somewhat lesser but still very important roles in what they’re doing and they continue to find the right complementary pieces, too.”

The Spurs take a 28-0 home record into Wednesday’s game, which means the Pistons will get a pretty good measuring stick of their progress during a four-game winning streak that coincides with the insertion of Harris into the starting lineup.

“We just look at it as a great opportunity,” Van Gundy said. “You go in and have a chance to be the first one in there. You’ve got a chance to be the first team to beat both they and Golden State. We know how good they are. There’s tremendous respect. We know we’ll have to play our best game to have a chance to win. But I think we look forward to the opportunity of doing that.”

The Pistons are assured of accomplishing one thing at San Antonio: cutting Old Man Riverwalk’s lead in career starts over their starting five to a mere 509.

“We have nothing to lose going in there,” Morris said. “They haven’t lost there all season. We’re playing well and hopefully we can go and pull one out.”