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Over the course of their parallel careers, NBA legends Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan — the league's No. 1 and No. 4 lifetime earners — developed a sharp-edged on-court rivalry.
Duncan, who spent his entire 19-year career at the San Antonio Spurs, led his team to five NBA championships. He and Garnett, a 15-time NBA all-star who has retired from the Boston Celtics and Minnesota Timberwolves, clashed on court more than 50 times during their careers.
The animus sprang from Garnett's habit of baiting, slapping and "whispering really weird smack" into Duncan's ear during games, according to a Sports Illustrated profile of Duncan. Eventually, Duncan came to hate Garnett "the way liberals hate Sean Hannity," SI reported.
Some in Duncan's circle take issue with the idea that the former power forward known for his unfailingly mild personality could hate anyone; The Onion once ran a headline that said, "Tim Duncan hams it up for crowd by arching left eyebrow slightly." Either way, after both retired in 2016, the two men's rivalry soon found a new post-game outlet.
In spring of 2017, they sat on the opposite side of a federal courtroom in San Antonio during a hearing about Charles Augustus Banks IV, Duncan's former financial advisor who still worked for Garnett. Duncan was suing Banks at the time and Garnett turned up to support the advisor. At the time, Banks was working for himself, having left CSI Capital Management, which was later acquired by SunTrust Bank.
To testify that day, and urge the judge not to grant Banks the probation he requested, the exceedingly shy Duncan braved the kind of publicity he's always tried to avoid. That's how strongly Duncan felt about protecting other athletes — including his antagonist Garnett — against Banks.
"I'm the poster child for the dumb athlete whose financial advisor took his money. I hate it," Duncan said in a statement at the time. Even more than that, he added,...