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With Tim Duncan not wanting to speak about his own retirement to the media, Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich took his place instead in a press conference on Tuesday. And since Popovich spent close to two decades with Duncan, the Spurs head coach became quite emotional and got choked up several times during the interview session.

"I'm trying to wrap my head around why I'm standing here and he's not," Popovich told reporters, via ESPN. "And we all know why. It's not Tim Duncan. We've been saying it for 19 years and he really only cared about doing the best job he could basketball-wise and being who he was for his teammates and being somebody who loved his family. That's really who he is."

"He's irreplaceable," Popovich would later say, via ESPN. "He's been so important to so many people it's just mind-boggling. To think that he's going to be gone makes it really difficult to imagine walking into practice, going to a game, getting on the bus, taking him a piece of carrot cake, whatever it might be."

Offering up the highest of compliments for Duncan while also showing how strong the bond he has with the future Hall of Famer, Popovich also told reporters he would rather have dinner with the Spurs big man than anybody else in the history of the world.

From ESPN:

"You know everybody talks about who they would like to eat dinner with. You know, if you had one night to go to dinner, go to lunch with so and so, and people say, you know, Mother Teresa and Jesus and the Dhali Lama and, OK, I get it, but if you think about it a little bit more earthly, worldly type people, you know, people who are interesting, I think of people like William F. Buckley on the right and Gore Vidal on the left, when they had their debates, some of you are old enough to remember that stuff, really clever, insightful people, ideas that blow your mind and that kind of stuff and I can honestly tell you (chokes up), my dinner would be with Tim Duncan, because he is the most real, consistent, true person I have ever met in my life. He was so genuine, it blows your mind, like Buckley or Vidal would in an avant garde sort of way."

Quite the statement from Popovich, who has always said he wouldn't be as successful as he is, if not for Duncan. But you can always tell their relationship goes beyond basketball and Popovich's choice of Duncan as his dinner mate shows just that.