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The NBA vets we're going to miss in 2016-2017 season
Kobe Bryant will be missing from an NBA roster for the first time since 1997. Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

The NBA vets we're going to miss in 2016-2017 season

Friends come and go, such is the nature of life and our favorite athletes. This summer saw Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Mo Williams, Kevin Garnett and Amar'e Stoudemire say goodbye to their NBA playing days, meaning the NBA will look much different in 2017 than it did in 1997.

Happy Friday to all and welcome back to the Yardbarker roundtable where we have our resident experts discuss the serious (and not so serious) sides of sports. This week we've been talking about NBA high five metrics, overrated teams and cult hero players who are destined to be the next Twitter meme. Today, a little more serious, the players we will no longer see make the highlight reels every night. So we asked our team:

Which player that retired over the summer will you miss the most and why?

Demetrius Bell: Tim Duncan is arguably the best to ever play his position, has the most individual and team accolades of any of the other legends who retired this offseason, and should probably have a wing of the Basketball Hall of Fame dedicated to himself. Yet, casual fans probably won't realize that he actually retired until about a week or so in the season when they see that he's no longer being listed as "DNP - old" on the box score but is actually inactive now. The masses won't miss him and the Spurs should be fine since they're still a machine and the picture of efficiency in the NBA, but it's a bummer that we lost an all-time great like Duncan.

Jason Clinkscales: This was admittedly splitting hairs between Duncan and Bryant, but the thing about Duncan that we grew to love over the years was how he was still incredibly strong, fluid and smooth in the later years of his career. What’s great about the NBA is that there is usually a player who we appreciate for still getting things done in their gray-haired years, but with Duncan, we marveled because he was still an efficient player in his twilight. Perhaps there will be someone like that this season – Dirk Nowitzki seems to fill that role – but sports fans finally came around and gave Duncan a career’s worth of overdue props.

San Antonio will miss him as there had been some preparation for Duncan’s retirement for a few years now. Yet, the Spurs’ fondness may not be as pronounced as how much the Lakers will not miss Kobe getting quintuple-teamed on hysterically bad jump shots.

Alex Wong: The best part about Kobe's last few years in the NBA was that he fully embraced the old curmudgeon role and cared very little about saying the right things and just let loose with whatever was on his mind. He was like the last vestige of the old guard, and now that he's gone, we'll need someone to fill that void.

The Lakers are more than happy to start a new page though, with Brandon Ingram and D'Angelo Russell fronting a promising young group, and Luke Walton as their new head coach. Not having to deal with the excruciating year-long annual Kobe farewell tour must be exciting, even if no one will say that publicly.

Sam Greszes: I grew up watching Tim Duncan and David Robinson on the Spurs. Maybe it's nostalgia, but Tim Duncan always seemed to be the perfect blend of goofy and competitive. He had a quality about him that made you smile when he was on the floor, and despite his reputation, I found his play incredibly exciting. He always seemed more relatable than Kobe, Garnett, or other NBA stars, a bit more down to earth, a bit more aware that sports are just sports. I'll really miss that. The Spurs probably won't, but they'll sure as hell miss his leadership on the court. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if Duncan takes up Popovich's offer and returns to the team in some capacity.

Shiloh Carder: I've been a Laker fan since Kareem had hair. It was his time to go but it will be weird to not see him out there. That 60 point game he had in his finale is the perfect example of how any Laker game could have turned into a monumental moment. Fans will miss Kobe, but the team won't. This is a young team that must find its way to success. I love Kobe, but he was stunting the young players' growth. It's time to move on.

David Matthews: Tim Duncan was the constant in my NBA viewing life when the post-Repeat-Threepeat Bulls were disbanded. The Big Fundamental's consistency expanded my NBA horizons. After growing up watching MJ and Pip astonishing guard play, seeing Tim Duncan do what Tim Duncan did lead to me watching other players in the Western Conference (and then later still other dominant big men when YouTube came around). MJ and the '90s Bulls are the reason I became a NBA fan, Tim Duncan's the reason I still am.

Jamie Neal: I'll miss Tim Duncan because he quietly did things the right way. It was fun to watch him and the Spurs break people down and destroy other teams with solid fundamentals. The Spurs weren't a high flying team, they didn't run an insanely fast paced offense, they just played their game and they won a lot by playing their game. The Spurs will miss Duncan's ability to draw defenders to him and to quietly dominate inside the paint. He created a lot of opportunities for other players just by being on the court and being active down low.

Kerith Gabriel: Tim Duncan, very quietly, gave NBA fans 19 seasons of great basketball. Not only did his play make him a first ballot Hall of Famer in his own right, but he made the Spurs a perennially relevant (if not dominant) team during his tenure.

Phillip Barnett: Anyone who isn't a Spurs fan who says they'll miss Tim Duncan more than they'll miss Kobe Bryant is a damn liar. This isn't about who was better than the other, it's about entertainment value. It's not often that a player scores 60, and best believe that after every time I've seen 60, I've gone out of my way to watch that player's next game. For Bryant, there is no next game. He left me, us, wanting one more – literally one more game. We don't need one more from Duncan or Garnett or Stoudemire. They're all done, and they all should be after amazing careers. But Kobe went out on 60, and I just want to see what's next for one more game – and we'll never get that.

Can you name every player to win a championship with Kobe Bryant?
SCORE:
0/54
TIME:
10:00
2010 - F/C
Pau Gasol
2010 - F
Metta World Peace
2010 - G
Derek Fisher
2010 - F
Lamar Odom
2010 - C
Andrew Bynum
2010 - G
Shannon Brown
2010 - G
Jordan Farmar
2010 - G
Sasha Vujacic
2010 - F
Luke Walton
2010 - C
D.J. Mbenga
2010 - F/C
Josh Powell
2009 - F/C
Pau Gasol
2009 - F
Lamar Odom
2009 - G/F
Trevor Ariza
2009 - G
Derek Fisher
2009 - C
Andrew Bynum
2009 - F
Luke Walton
2009 - G
Jordan Farmar
2009 - G
Shannon Brown
2009 - C
D.J. Mbenga
2009 - G
Sasha Vujacic
2002 - C
Shaquille O'Neal
2002 - G
Derek Fisher
2002 - F
Rick Fox
2002 - F
Robert Horry
2002 - F
Devean George
2002 - G
Brian Shaw
2002 - F/C
Samaki Walker
2002 - G
Lindsey Hunter
2002 - F/C
Stanislav Medvedenko
2002 - G
Mitch Richmond
2002 - F/C
Mark Madsen
2001 - C
Shaquille O'Neal
2001 - G
Derek Fisher
2001 - F
Rick Fox
2001 - F
Robert Horry
2001 - F
Horace Grant
2001 - G
Tyronn Lue
2001 - G
Brian Shaw
2001 - G
Ron Harper
2001 - F/C
Mark Madsen
2001 - G
Isaiah Rider
2001 - G
Mike Penberthy
2000 - C
Shaquille O'Neal
2000 - F
Glen Rice
2000 - G
Ron Harper
2000 - F
Robert Horry
2000 - F
Rick Fox
2000 - G
Derek Fisher
2000 - F/C
A.C. Green
2000 - G
Brian Shaw
2000 - C
Travis Knight
2000 - F/C
John Salley
2000 - F
Devean George

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