{"id":680418,"date":"2026-06-02T19:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T19:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/680418\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T19:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T19:48:08","slug":"that-was-the-last-time-i-would-talk-junk-to-tim-draymond-green-reveals-the-exact-moment-tim-duncan-made-him-stop-talking-trash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/680418\/","title":{"rendered":"“That was the last time I would talk junk to Tim” – Draymond Green reveals the exact moment Tim Duncan made him stop talking trash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Look at NBA personalities \u2014 Draymond Green<\/a> and Tim Duncan<\/a> sit on almost opposite ends of the spectrum.<\/p>\n

Green built his reputation on noise, confrontation and edge.<\/p>\n

Duncan built his on calm, silence and complete control.<\/p>\n

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The contrast is stark enough to make you wonder what would happen if the two ever went at it on the hardwood. As it turns out, they did \u2014 not often, just once.<\/p>\n

Green<\/a>\u00a0himself talked about it back in 2016, and, by his own telling, it ended in absolute dominance for Duncan.<\/p>\n

Dray tried it once and never again<\/p>\n

Green has never been shy about leaning into the mental side of the game. Plenty of opponents have fallen into that trap. Duncan, though, wasn’t like the usual targets. Far from it, actually.<\/p>\n

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Green learned that early. It happened during his rookie year with the\u00a0Golden State Warriors<\/a>, after entering the league as a late second-round pick out of Michigan State.<\/p>\n

Fueled by a bit of youthful energy, the 2012 draft pick wasn’t about to back down \u2014 not even from a future Hall of Famer. So he tried to get under Duncan’s skin during a game.<\/p>\n

It didn’t go far, though. As Draymond recalled, the\u00a0San Antonio Spurs<\/a>\u00a0legend just looked back at him without saying a word.<\/p>\n

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Sometimes not engaging at all says more than anything else. Duncan showed that. The silence hit harder than any comeback could have. Consequently, it shut down his opponent. Green later admitted as much.<\/p>\n

In that moment, he realized there was no point in continuing. Either The Big Fundamental wasn’t interested, or that was just who he was. Maybe both.<\/p>\n

Dray eventually summed it up with a blunt line,\u00a0saying<\/a>\u00a0he figured\u00a0“that was the last time I would talk junk to Tim,”\u00a0and, as it turned out, it really was.<\/p>\n

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Green and Duncan faced each other\u00a016 times<\/a>\u00a0in total, and that remained his only trash-talking attempt. For a player known for pushing buttons and piling up ejections \u2014 the 2017 DPOY has\u00a0the second-most in NBA history<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 that says plenty.<\/p>\n

Related: Way before his disaster against the Spurs, Chet Holmgren claimed it would take him two months to become the best NBA player<\/a><\/p>\n

Duncan got in your head without a word<\/p>\n

Green has always treated trash talk as part of the competition. A way to test how much pressure an opponent can handle. He even laid out his own rules for it years later, saying,\u00a0“It’s about the only line I draw.”<\/a><\/p>\n

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That mindset explains why he kept at Duncan in the first place.<\/p>\n

In Dray’s world, it’s easy to assume silence means weakness, as if he’s cracked, someone. Against Timmy, it meant he had run into a wall.<\/p>\n

That same wall shows up in former NBA player Etan Thomas’ account, just in a different way.<\/p>\n

Duncan once blocked Thomas’ shot, then calmly told him how to finish it better. Go stronger into his body, create contact and make it harder to block the next time. Etan was left wondering whether he’d just been coached or challenged, later stating,\u00a0“I didn’t know what to think.”<\/a><\/p>\n

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Ultimately, that was part of what made The Big Fundamental so unusual. He could get under your skin without ever raising his voice.<\/p>\n

And with a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 like his, Duncan never really had to say much anyway. After all, his game spoke for itself. More importantly, so did the accolades it brought.<\/p>\n

Five championships. Two regular-season MVP awards. Three Finals MVPs. 15 All-Star selections.<\/p>\n

Related: Tim Duncan watched the Discovery Channel all day after announcing his retirement in 2016: “When it’s not fun anymore, then I’m done”<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Jun 2, 2026, where it first appeared in the Old School<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Look at NBA personalities \u2014 Draymond Green and Tim Duncan sit on almost opposite ends of the spectrum.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[13339,2243,355,2116,99,9752,296410],"class_list":["post-680418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-draymond-green","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-nba","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-sports","tag-tim-duncan","tag-trash-talking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}