I n the end, there was no long goodbye. Next season, there will be no farewell tour.

There was no single moment leading to Monday, when the Spurs’ franchise changed forever, again.

Two years ago, Tim Duncan, the greatest champion San Antonio has ever known and one of the top players in NBA history, was asked to predict when the day would come when he would walk away.

“It will happen when it happens,” Duncan said then. “I’ll feel it and I’ll know it and I’ll call it a day.”

That, writ large, was what happened Monday.

Duncan knew it and he felt it. And he called it a day.

Duncan, 40, announced his retirement after 19 decorated seasons in a way befitting his understated approach to the sport he had for so long dominated.

The news dropped via press release, sent by the Spurs, just before 9 a.m.

It contained no statement from Duncan. The Spurs held no news conference, though coach Gregg Popovich is scheduled to address reporters today.

There is a chance Duncan will also meet with the media later this week.

Popovich, Duncan’s only NBA coach, long ago predicted this kind of silent goodbye.

“It will probably be the third quarter of some game on the road some year,” Popovich said in 2014. “He’ll feel he’s not as significant, and he’ll walk into the locker room.”

From the day he arrived in 1997, Duncan has loomed large over a Spurs franchise that had never won a championship.

He retires having helped to place five NBA championship banners in the AT&T Center, in the process transforming the Spurs into one of the most envied organizations in professional sports.

A 15-time All-Star, two-time league MVP selection and winner of three NBA Finals MVP trophies, Duncan is sure to head directly into the Hall of Fame when he becomes eligible for induction in five years.

Considered one of the top big men of all time, Duncan’s place in the game is undeniable.

His place in San Antonio is unimpeachable.

For fans of a certain age, Duncan is as much a part of the Alamo City landscape as the Alamo itself.

Duncan played 19 seasons with the Spurs, one of only three players in league history to spend as much time with a single franchise. Utah’s John Stockton and the Los Angeles Lakers’ Kobe Bryant are the others.

“It’s a sad day in basketball,” said Spurs guard Danny Green, who was working out at the team’s practice facility when he heard Monday’s bombshell. “He was supposed to retire for the last four or five seasons, but he always came back for one more year. We knew it had to happen sometime, but once it happens, it’s crazy to hear.”

Duncan leaves as the Spurs’ career leader in almost every statistical category, including points (26,496), rebounds (15,091), blocks (3,020) and games (1,392).

He ranks third in assists (4,225) and fifth in steals (1,025), categories typically dominated by smaller players.

“You look at what Tim did, he put this city and this franchise on the map,” said Sean Elliott, one of the 138 teammates Duncan had in his career. “He probably did as much or more for this city than any San Antonian.”

That Duncan became a San Antonian at all came down to the lucky bounce of a pingpong ball.

The Spurs were not mathematically favored to win the 1997 draft lottery that landed them the right to draft Duncan, an All-American from Wake Forest. Boston was favored to win the big prize.

Popovich was so certain that the Spurs would not earn the first pick, he spent lottery day in a hospitality tent outside the auditorium in Secaucus, New Jersey, where the drawing was held. He was munching on a cheeseburger when his life changed forever.

“I remember all these media people rushed back in the room and started to interview me,” Popovich said, recalling the story years later. “Like I had done something.”

Once in San Antonio, Duncan teamed with Popovich, then in his first full season as an NBA head coach, to form the winningest player-coach combo in NBA history.

Beginning with Duncan’s rookie season, the Spurs posted a 1,071-438 record, good for the highest winning percentage in professional sports over that span.

Duncan’s teams went 158-98 in the postseason, the best mark in the league over that stretch. The Spurs’ string of 19 consecutive playoff appearances on Duncan’s watch is the longest active streak in the league.

“He’s left a tremendous legacy,” former NBA great Grant Hill said Monday while watching Summer League games. “We all know about his accomplishments. On top of that, he was selfless in an era when a lot of players aren’t selfless.”

Though somewhat expected, Duncan’s retirement sent tremors throughout the NBA world, from Summer League in Las Vegas, where many of the league’s movers and shakers are gathered this week, to the league’s gleaming New York high-rise offices.

Teammates such as Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, who combined with Duncan to form the winningest Big Three in league history, tweeted their congratulations. So did former Duncan adversaries such as LeBron James and high-profile fans such as actor Samuel L. Jackson.

Duncan will leave as the NBA’s 14th-leading career scorer, and he ranks sixth on the all-time rebounding list and fifth in blocked shots.

In a statement, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver labeled Duncan “one of the most dominant players in NBA history” and praised the “understated selflessness than made him the ultimate teammate.”

Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks, another of Duncan’s former teammates, said he was “speechless” at news of the NBA icon’s departure.

“Surprised he’s not going to play for another four or five years,” Marks said Monday in Las Vegas. “Everybody knew this day would come. What he’s done for the game, for the Spurs, for the city of San Antonio as a whole — it’s incredible.”

Said Minnesota coach Tom Thibodeau: “His career speaks for itself. To win the five championships, and do it the way he did with a lot of dignity and class, he was great for the game, great for the league and obviously great for the Spurs.”

Thibodeau was an assistant in New York in 1999, when Duncan helped deliver a delirious San Antonio its first championship.

Four years later, as the Spurs ousted the then-New Jersey Nets to claim their second championship, Duncan put together a Finals for the ages: 24.2 points, 17 rebounds and 5.3 blocks per game.

“What he did in that series was just remarkable,” said Kevin Willis, the elder statesman of the Spurs’ 2003 title team. “He willed us to win. He was unstoppable.”

Duncan added three more championships to his legacy, the most recent in 2014, when the Spurs knocked off James’ Miami Heat squad.

From his first game (a 107-96 victory in Denver on Halloween Night 1997) — to his last (a 113-96 Game 6 loss at Oklahoma City on May 12), Duncan built a reputation as a stoic champion whose competitive fire burned hot but silently.

Elliott tells the story of inviting Duncan, then a rookie, to his house for the first time to play video games together.

“I used to torture the neighborhood kids on those games. They called me ‘The Master,’” Elliott said. “Within 10 minutes, he was whipping my butt. He said, ‘I’ve never seen this game before, but it’s fun.’”

That competitive streak spilled over to the court, as his fistful of championships attest.

More Information By the numbers For Tim Duncan, who announced his retirement Monday after 19 NBA seasons, all with the Spurs: 1: Drafted first overall by the Spurs in 1997 2: NBA MVP awards, 2001-02 and 2002-03. Also the other players (John Stockton and Kobe Bryant) to spend at least 19 years with one NBA franchise 3: NBA Finals MVP awards, 1999, 2003 and 2005. Also the decades in which he won NBA championships, something no other player in league history has done, and the times he came off the bench in his regular-season career 5: NBA championships: 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2014 8: Career triple-doubles (four regular season, four playoffs) 10: Length, in pages, of biography in the Spurs’ media guide 15: All-Star Game selections 19: Years played in the NBA 21: Only jersey number he ever wore with the Spurs 23: NBA player of the week awards 27: Career high for rebounds, set Jan. 27, 2010, against Atlanta 50: Minimum games the Spurs have won in each of the past 17 seasons, an NBA record 53: Career-high for points, set Dec. 26, 2001, against Dallas. 138: Players who appeared in at least one game with the Spurs as a Duncan teammate 251: Career playoff games. There are 18 active NBA franchises that have not been in as many playoff games. 701: Games he won alongside both Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, most by a trio in NBA history (575 regular season, 126 playoffs) 835: Career regular-season dunks 1,001: Regular-season wins in which he appeared, third-most in NBA history. He and Gregg Popovich have the most wins by a player-coach duo in NBA history. 1,005: Career double-doubles (841 regular season, 164 playoffs) 1,392: Regular-season games played 3,020: Career blocked-shot total, fifth-most in NBA history 4,225: Career assist total, third-most in Spurs history 9,370: Career playoff minutes played, most in NBA history 15,091: Career rebound total, sixth-most in NBA history 26,496: Career points total, 14th-most in NBA history 47,368: Career minutes played, 10th-most in NBA history 14,403,425: Combined attendance for Spurs regular-season home games during Duncan’s career $240,000,000: Estimated worth of his NBA contracts with the Spurs Staff and wire reports

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Popovich has no trouble quantifying what Duncan has meant to him. He was in danger of being fired early in his second season, before Duncan and the Spurs rallied to win the 1999 title.

“Every time I walk around the house, once a month, I tell my wife, ‘Say thank you, Tim,’” Popovich said.

And now the rest of San Antonio joins in, bidding farewell to the player who changed it all.

jmcdonald@express-news.net

Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN