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Between boring off debris, angle aback bent fences and cutting through cellophane packaging on cases of Ranch Style Beans with a abridged knife, Tim Duncan stops every now and afresh to asphyxiate a animated Virgin Islander in the embrace of his 7-foot-5 wingspan.

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It's here, in this parking lot in St. Thomas alfresco the Win Mill 2.O sports bar, endemic by Duncan's best friend, Rashidi Clenance, that the U.S. Virgin Islands' best apparent sports bulk embarks on conceivably the best important adventure of his life: antecedent commitment of what to date has been about 500,000 pounds of aliment and 200,000 pounds of generators to his home, which was destroyed by Category 5 hurricanes Irma and Maria.

In the States, Duncan maintains a austere no-photographs policy. But here, it's the opposite, with the greatest ability advanced of all time -- acrid from a cocktail of mosquito spray, sunscreen and diaphoresis -- snapping added selfies with strangers than the aggregation of photos and memorabilia featuring his affinity central the bar aloof anxiety away.

"If it brings hope, if it brings help, if it brings a smile, or if I can booty a account and it helps somebody, at this point I'm all for that," Duncan said. "I'm actually a angle out of water. But you've gotta be what you've gotta be aback you've gotta be it, right?"

"Tim couldn't accept been who he was in this bearings afterwards him arena for the Spurs."

Sort of. The absoluteness is that in this case, Duncan is actuality what he has consistently been: the able leader.

If Duncan abstruse annihilation from 19 seasons arch an NBA absolutism beneath drillmaster Gregg Popovich and accepted administrator R.C. Buford, it's how to put calm and backpack a motivated, affectionate squad. That's a assignment he has completed the accomplished brace of months with what he calls a "mishmash of folks" who allotment the ambition of abating course to the U.S. Virgin Islands, abnormally St. Thomas and Duncan's hometown of St. Croix.

"Tim couldn't accept been who he was in this bearings afterwards him arena for the Spurs and actuality a allotment of that absurd organization," Clenance said. "I anticipate it's because of that absurd alignment he was able to put calm a assemblage like this.

"Every now and again, you'll allocution to Tim, and he'll say things like, 'I appetite to do this the appropriate way,' which is commodity I'm abiding Pop formed in his arch for two decades. To see his admission and faculty of aggregation ... in 2014, he won that assistant accolade [the Twyman-Stokes Assistant of the Year Award], which is alleged by the NBA players. That is what he embodied here. It was never a faculty of, 'Me, me, me. Look at what I did.' It was added about putting calm a aggregation that could achieve commodity like this."

With country music superstar Kenny Chesney, amateur Matt Damon's claimed aegis team, a Grammy-award-winning changeable artist, a 180-pound inferior linebacker and his banking planner, Wendy Kowalik, amid several others, Duncan accumulated a bandage as committed to abatement efforts on the Virgin Islands as he was to acceptable titles in San Antonio.

Having lived through Blow Hugo about 30 years ago, Duncan knew what was advancing and announced with Clenance, who texted U.S. Virgin Islands governor Kenneth E. Mapp and contacts at the badge administration to let them apperceive that his best acquaintance from adolescence was absorbed in acceptable with relief.

In San Antonio, meanwhile, Duncan alleged his banking adviser, Kowalik. With the confusion from Blow Harvey in adjacent Houston lingering, Duncan was afraid to ask the accessible to help.

Instead, Duncan bound a letter to assorted civic corporations requesting assistance. That, on admonition from Meredith Geisler at Tandem Sports, morphed into Duncan's ardent allotment appear Sept. 9 in The Players Tribune.

"After the commodity ran, the acknowledgment was aloof amazing," Kowalik said.

That's aback Duncan and Kowalik knew they bare to put calm a team: a accumulation of professionals with capricious accomplishment sets who would anatomy a basic Voltron for abatement efforts bound afterwards Irma -- one of the best able Atlantic storms in a aeon -- ripped through the Virgin Islands on Sept. 6 and acquired adverse damage.

Internal abstracts tab the squad's name as 21 USVI Blow Help, but the accumulation additionally goes by 21 U.S. Virgin Islands Relief, Duncan Relief, On the Ground, No Red Band and Duncan's favorite: The Bad News Bears. (He's a constant Chicago Bears fan).

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The money caked in anon afterwards Duncan's allotment in the Players Tribune, with the above Spur authoritative an antecedent accession of $250,000 that swelled to an added $1 million. The absolute now nears $2.7 million.

But banknote abandoned doesn't ample athirst bellies or accommodate medical aliment and added aliment to a abode breadth actual appurtenances are inaccessible. The accessible band-aid would accept been to advance a analysis about abreast the Virgin Islands, such as Florida or Puerto Rico, to armamentarium commitment of the goods. The botheration was that both Florida and Puerto Rico suffered adverse basement accident from the storms, too.

"So, we're like, 'OK, now how do we augment people?'" Kowalik said.

"For somebody who absolutely does animosity actuality the advanced man or in advanced of the camera, he took the advance alone for the acceptable of added people."

Throughout their chase for an acknowledgment to that question, Kowalik and Duncan approached grocery abundance alternation H-E-B, which is a above sponsor of the Spurs. H-E-B directed them to the San Antonio Aliment Bank, a common accomplice of the alternation that serves 58,000 commons per anniversary locally and distributes 74 amateur commons annually.

The aliment coffer helped Duncan's aggregation antecedent the aliment through a brace aliment drives in San Antonio at H-E-B locations. Michael Guerra, arch development administrator at the aliment bank, and Richard Plumlee, the account and aliment assurance manager, showed them what types of appurtenances they would charge to put on planes and how to adapt for administration afterwards landing. The San Antonio Aliment Coffer basically lent all 210 of its advisers to admonition aggregate and abundance truckloads of donations for Duncan in a 210,000-square-foot barn on its 40-acre campus.

Then there was the bulk of accepting the planes. Kowalik alleged above aide Jim Perschbach, now the controlling carnality admiral for business development at the Port of San Antonio. Perschbach accomplished Kowalik how to allotment burden planes.

It took the aggregation beneath than a anniversary to aggregate the 170,000 pounds of aliment it delivered on four B-727s that landed on Sept. 14 at Cyril E. King Airport in St. Thomas. The planes were additionally brimming of bags of medical supplies, including insulin and antibiotics anchored through the admonition of Dr. Stephen Ponder in Temple, Texas.

"Timmy drafted us," Guerra said. "We didn't all apperceive anniversary added before, and it took a little while to get into a groove. We approved not to be too hierarchical, and everybody aloof approved to do a bit of everything. But as a leader, Tim set the tone. He aloof advised bodies like they were family."

The branches of this ancestors timberline extend wide. In accession to Duncan, Clenance and Tim's earlier brother Scott Duncan, a videographer and the group's official photographer, the aggregation includes Mark Assad, David Birch and Jake Rogers, who serve as aegis for Spurs amateur with the capital job of attention Oscar-winning amateur Matt Damon. (They've additionally adequate Johnny Depp.) The aegis detail knows its way about army control, which is acute to advancement adjustment in demanding altitude while befitting the bandage affective as bound as accessible and aspersing frustrations amid the survivors.

By Saturday, retired Spurs advanced Tim Duncan had accomplished added than bisected of his $1 amateur ambition afterwards penning an animated appeal Friday in The Players' Tribune for donations adjoin blow abatement efforts in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

"The affair we are best appreciative of is the aftermost accident we did [Oct. 7 through Oct. 10 on St. Croix], we had assorted organizations from FEMA, Red Cross, the Civic Guard and the badge advancing up and saying, 'I've never apparent annihilation in our abatement efforts run as calmly as this does,'" Kowalik said.

Eric Barbosa works acumen with Kowalik, and -- aback he wasn't at his 9-to-5 job at nonprofit government architect PCSI, which transports six amateur pounds of burden per year -- he accomplished her and the aggregation how to move artefact on trucks already it hits the ground. Kowalik's son Rowdy, a 5-foot-9, 180-pound inferior linebacker at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, handles all of the team's amusing media accounts and maintains its website.

Then there's the continued aggregation that includes Chesney, whose home on St. John, Virgin Islands, was destroyed. He has been active to the aggregation in the administration of medical supplies. Billionaire and above New York City ambassador Michael Bloomberg's accumulation has provided abundant of the added basement on the arena in the Virgin Islands. In addition, a Grammy-award-winning accompanist and currently one of the world's best accepted artists, whose reps asked that she not be named, has stepped in to admonition accession funds for Duncan's aggregation through her foundation.

Even the Memphis Grizzlies accept helped. Blow Maria swept through the Virgin Islands aloof two weeks afterwards Irma hit, abrogation Kowalik scrambling to allotment added planes to bear 250,000 pounds of aliment and 20,000 pounds of generators from the San Antonio Aliment Bank. Virtually every alike accessible was aloof for deliveries to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.

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The aggregation advised aircraft the appurtenances on boats out of Houston, but that would've taken two weeks. In added words, too long.

"That's two weeks of bodies active afterwards what you accept actuality to accord them," Duncan said. "So we've gone every avenue accessible to try to get it there as anon as possible."

Duncan's agent, Jim Tanner, bent wind of the team's plight and contacted the Grizzlies, who comedy at FedExForum. The Grizzlies affiliated the Duncan aggregation with FedEx, and on Oct. 7, the aboriginal of two MD-11s landed at the Henry E. Rohlsen Airport in St. Croix.

"I had no abstraction how cutting it would be," Duncan said. "Luckily in my little bubble, I was like, 'All right, yeah, I can admonition do this.' I didn't apprehend what the accomplishment of what I was accepting into was. But I begin some absolutely acceptable people, who in assertive respects accept affectionate of done this, and aloof affectionate of threw it together. Ever aback then, we affectionate of accomplish it up on the fly."

Two accomplish into the aperture at BlackJack Acceleration Boutique lies a accumulation of arenaceous boxes abounding of diabetic aliment -- meters, braces, canes, bandage aids and balm -- ample alongside bedding, cardboard plates, canned appurtenances and pillowcases, awash abutting to a abounding car anatomy and a motor abeyant by chains, abreast a affectation of gargantuan barter rims.

Through the showroom, out the aback aperture and up a flight of stairs sits Tim Duncan's office, with a carpeting window announcement a boutique breadth beneath blowzy with a army of tricked-out cars beneath construction. Duncan devotes the majority of his post-retirement activity to his children, Draven, Sydney and new babe Quill, but his car customization business helps augment his affection for speed.

In here, the alone mementos of a 19-year Hall of Fame career with the San Antonio Spurs, including bristles titles and two MVP awards, are a brace of paintings aptitude adjoin the bank on the attic abutting to apparatus boxes, headers, pipes, antagonism seats, a turbo assembly, bumpers, achievement batten oil filters and dozens of boxes from Amazon, which no agnosticism accommodate alike added auto parts.

Yet none of the achievement genitalia on the attic can advance Duncan's chase adjoin time the way the ones ample in the aperture do, with the admonition of his team.

"Our pros that were active things begin out bound that things don't appear at internet or 5G speeds on the Virgin Islands," Duncan said with a laugh.

That didn't stop them from alive with a agitated faculty of urgency.

"We had three or four bodies who had absent their homes totally. ... They were like, 'Yeah, we're actuality to help.' So I anticipate of how able bodies are. It's been amazing."

Just a anniversary afterwards Irma wreaked calamity on the Virgin Islands, Duncan and the team, over a bulk of four days, fabricated their aboriginal commitment to added than 6,500 blow survivors. Nineteen canicule later, afterwards Maria hit, they brought added than bifold the bulk of the aboriginal distribution.

Keep in apperception that these deliveries don't booty abode afterwards several "of these little miracles that happened so abounding times forth the way," Guerra said. Aback the aggregation fabricated its aboriginal deliveries, it operated on a austere government alarm of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in an already chock-full territory, aberrant through St. Thomas in trucks abounding with appurtenances on anchorage blowzy with bits and ability lines, with no streetlights or signals acclimation cartage flow.

Complicating administration was the actuality that best of the bags of survivors were walking to the curve set up by the Duncan team. The accumulation bare to bear the appurtenances bound abundant for survivors to abandon the streets by curfew. On the aboriginal cruise to St. Thomas, the aggregation handed out about 30 pounds of aliment per actuality to 6,500 people, and on cruise No. 2, they gave 10,500 blow victims 24 pounds of aliment per actuality over two-and-a-half days.

That's breadth the capricious accomplishment sets of the aggregation associates came into comedy -- not to acknowledgment all the abetment from volunteers on the ground, abounding of whom had absent their homes, as able-bodied as the Civic Guard, Red Cross, FEMA, the U.S. Air Force and the badge department.

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Scott Duncan said the aggregation affairs to bear "every anniversary or two weeks" or as anon as the accumulation receives admission to added donated planes because "our accumulation of donations is huge," he said.

Guerra has taken two canicule off in the accomplished bristles weeks. Kowalik calls the accepted adventure "gratifying" but added time-consuming than a full-time job. Duncan says his aboriginal four trips to the Virgin Islands were aloof the start, and he's in it for the continued booty -- "months and years," he said.

The San Antonio Aliment Coffer has told Duncan it is there "as continued as he needs," according to Guerra. The backstairs Spurs are committed, too. Duncan accustomed that the alignment has accustomed "whatever I asked for," including "sizable contributions" from Popovich and Buford.

"That's why we were the Bad News Bears -- aloof a hodgepodge aggregation of bodies that fabricated it work," Duncan said. "We bare the logistical people. We bare bodies who accept done this before. We bare the bodies who are gonna advance timelines, bodies who are abrupt and frustrated. But at the aforementioned time, we bare the bodies from the island that accepted that, 'Hey, this is how it works.' With all that, we're aggravating to accomplish it work."

They're succeeding. Duncan marvels at the backbone of his aggregation of volunteers, abnormally the Virgin Islands citizenry toiling in the sun to admonition the territory's built-in son, admitting accepting absent their homes.

"We had three or four bodies who had absent their homes absolutely -- absent their homes," Duncan said. "I didn't alike apperceive for a day and a bisected because they were aloof there. They were in the mix, and they were helping. And it wasn't like [anybody said], 'Hey, I've got to go.' Or, 'Hey, this is what happened to me.' They were like, 'Yeah, we're actuality to help.' So I anticipate of how able bodies are. It's been amazing."

Back at Win Mill 2.O on Oct. 17, Clenance sat at the bar staring at the TV as he beheld the NBA's slate of amateur on aperture night. On the broadcasts, commentators discussed blow abatement efforts, absorption on Puerto Rico. Not already did Clenance apprehend the Virgin Islands mentioned, which he "thought was weird," because that one of the NBA's brightest stars hails from the U.S. territory.

"We're overshadowed for whatever reason. Puerto Rico has added people, yes, but we're all ambidextrous with the aforementioned devastation," Clenance said. "Puerto Rico's gonna animation back, and so are we. Every day, you deathwatch up in a adversity area. Every night, you go to beddy-bye with a architect active in the background. Afterwards a while, bodies aloof appetite some normalcy. Sometimes, afterwards a blaze is aback the affirmation is at its greenest."

That's why Duncan stepped out of his abundance area of blackout and aloneness to conduct arguably as abounding interviews these accomplished two months as he did during his absolute final division with the Spurs.

"I've abstruse a lot about myself through this process, how acceptable it is to be out there and to admonition people, to footfall out of my little carapace that I absolutely adore actuality in for the acceptable of my hometown and my people, how absolutely acceptable bodies can be aback bodies are in a time of need," Duncan said. "When you can affectionate of cut through the red band and cut through all the backroom and affectionate of be contiguous with people, [you realize] bodies are absolutely good."

Now association in the Virgin Islands get to see what Popovich enjoyed up abutting for 19 NBA seasons.

"For somebody who absolutely does animosity actuality the advanced man or in advanced of the camera," Popovich said, "he took the advance alone for the acceptable of added people, and was accommodating to quote-unquote eat it and do what he bare to do to admonition a ample accumulation of people."

Hurricane Hugo burst Duncan's dreams of acceptable an Olympic swimmer aback in 1989 by antibacterial the bounded pool, but that pushed him into a activity of basketball. Clenance hopes to see a agnate adventure of celebration from tragedy disentangle in the deathwatch of Irma and Maria. His bar, afterwards all, took its name "to actualize the actuality the Virgin Islands produces WINNERS," according to a announcement on the spot's Facebook page.

When Win Mill 2.O aboriginal opened in Frenchtown Plaza the night of Bold 1 of the 2017 NBA Finals, they put up a bandage about 100 anxiety from the bar. Afore the storms rocked the region, Clenance never saw kids arena basketball there. But with electricity bottomward and mostly generators administering the use of energy, Playstations, Xboxes and the like abatement low on the account of priorities.

"After these storms, they've been out there arena basketball, and I can't admonition every time I see them or I airing accomplished that hoop, I think, 'That's how it started for Tim,'" Clenance said. "So amidst all this, there's activity to be somebody bored, and they're activity to go out there and shoot some hoops and assignment on their game. And you never apperceive breadth that's activity to booty them. We saw what it did for Tim. Every now and again, it takes commodity bad for commodity acceptable to happen."

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