New San Antonio Spur Chris Paul explains a decades-old photo of him with Tim Duncan | San Antonio

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Left: Shutterstock / lev radin; Right: Allen Rindfuss

As speculation arose that Chris Paul (left) would soon become a Spurs player, an old photo made the rounds showing him with San Antonio legend Tim Duncan.

A 1997 photo of teenage Chris Paul smiling next to fellow rookie Tim Duncan has been making the rounds online in recent weeks. It started when rumors began swirling that the San Antonio Spurs had their eye on Paul for the upcoming season – a deal that was finalized earlier this week.

The photo of Paul and Duncan is not new. It was originally published by Sports illustrated in October 2015, the final season of Duncan’s illustrious career with Spurs. When it was first released, there wasn’t much context attached to the photo.

“It’s young Chris Paul and old Tim Duncan,” read the caption on social media.

They are young Chris Paul and old Tim Duncan. pic.twitter.com/AyrCbrebPS

— SI Vault (@si_vault) 20 October 2015

During a press conference Tuesday at The Rock at La Cantera where the team officially welcomed Paul and new forward Harrison Barnes, Paul described his photo with Duncan in more detail. It turns out that Paul played on the same AAU basketball team as Duncan’s nephew Shane when he was a kid.

“We were teammates from about 11 to 14,” Paul told the Current“Tim in the picture had just been drafted. And we were in Utah at the Nationals and Tim came to watch us.”

Paul added that as a young teenager growing up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he would go to the local YMCA and “watch Tim play basketball” when Duncan played for Wake Forest University. Paul also played basketball at Wake Forest for two seasons. That was six years after Duncan graduated and was selected by the Spurs as the first overall NBA draft pick in 1997.

Paul also played basketball at the time with current Spurs assistant coach Darius Songaila, who was on the Wake Forest team from 1998 to 2002.

“This is where things come full circle for many moments,” said Paul.

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