NBA Draft: Ranking the 10 Greatest No. 1 Picks of All-Time

#3 Tim Duncan

2014 NBA Finals - Game Five

Tim Duncan has possibly the greatest single-franchise career of any player in NBA history. The Spurs ended up with the #1 pick in the 1997 NBA draft, and they hit a home run with this selection. In 19 years with the franchise, Duncan has the best winning percentage for any player with over 1000 games played, winning 50+ games in every single regular season campaign of his career.

It is a travesty that the best rim protector of his era did not end up with a single Defensive Player of the Year award, but Tim Duncan has the most All-Defensive Team selections of all time at 15 - which sorta evens out the scale. He also has 2 MVPs, 3 Finals MVPs, 5 championships, 15 All-NBA selections and 15 All-Star game selections in a glittering career that defies superlatives.

Duncan was the definition of a model employee and took pay cuts later on in his career to facilitate the Spurs' title bids later in his career. Playing with any other franchise, his per-game numbers would be much better, but there's certainly no denying that his 2003 Finals MVP performance against the Nets is right up there with the greatest Finals performances of all time.