DeMarcus Cousins is without a doubt one of the most colorful personalities we've ever seen in the NBA. This man has been involved in his fair share of controversies both on and off the court. Through the years, he's also learned more than a few valuable lessons. One of them happens to be, never to mess with Tim Duncan.

Cousins recently made a guest appearance on the Outta Pocket podcast and one of the most memorable moments from the lengthy interview was his story about the San Antonio Spurs legend. Cousins has nothing but love and respect for Duncan — something that he had to learn the hard way:

“I don't want to hear no Top 5 without Tim Duncan on it,” Cousins said. “I used to get so frustrated playing against Tim Duncan because I could not figure him out.”

Cousins then told his story about that one time he tried to talk smack to Tim. Boogie said that it was so “irritating” that Duncan never talked back. Instead, the Spurs icon let his game do the talking:

“I'm having a decent successful night,” Cousins recalled. “So my young dumb a** decides to go talk s**t to Timmy: ‘Yeah motherf***er.' I remember backpedaling down court and Timmy looked up at me. He just looked at me kind of laughing to himself.

“This is the fourth quarter. This dude ran off 16 straight (points). 16 straight. And he never said anything to me. … I'm like, ‘This motherf***er!'”

That's hilarious. To make matters worse, Duncan even gave Cousins a gentle butt tap while telling him that he was doing a “good job.” That's savage. That's actually much worse than talking smack. Tim Duncan is a true legend for this, no doubt.

Since then, DeMarcus Cousins admitted that he “left Timmy alone” from that point on. Smart man.