With France’s 80-66 victory over Lithuania on Sunday, Tony Parker completed a remarkable year of basketball. Three months after the San Antonio Spurs lost Game 7 of the NBA Finals, Parker was the MVP of EuroBasket, carrying the French national team to their first European championship. He averaged 20 points on 53 percent shooting in 30 minutes a game. Parker was essentially scoring at will against most of the best national teams in the world.

It’s the same story in San Antonio, where he has long since taken the reigns from Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili. Last season, Parker averaged 20 points and 8 assists on a career-high 52 percent field-goal percentage. At an age where most smaller guards are slowing down, he is as good as ever. There’s no real secret to what he does: he takes what the defense gives him and doesn’t make the game hard on himself. That’s how a slight 6’2 31-year-old dominates a sport designed for giants.

When you look at the shot distribution charts for NBA PG’s, Parker is a notable outlier. He took 5.4 shots a game at the rim in 2013, behind only Russell Westbrook and Tyreke Evans. And while Parker isn’t nearly as physically imposing, he shot a much higher percentage (69%) than Westbrook (62%) or Evans (63%). From 3-9 feet of the basket, there’s no point guard that takes as many shots (2.3) and makes them at a higher percentage (50%).

The foundation of his game is his mastery of the one-handed floater. With just the flick of his wrist, Parker can create a good shot from anywhere in the paint. As a result, even the longest and most athletic defenders are almost powerless to prevent Parker from scoring. Since he can score from any release point, there’s no time for the defense to react to his shot. There’s a reason the teardrop is called the giant killer; every young guard should have one.

From there, it just becomes a matter of arithmetic. The offense of both the Spurs and the French national team is designed to get Parker in space, usually off the pick-and-roll. Once he gets a lane to the basket, he can finish over the top of even the longest shot-blockers. If they commit to trapping him, he can hit the big man rolling to the basket. If the defense overloads, he looks for a shooter spotting up on the perimeter. There’s no way to stop everything.

And while most smaller guards are excellent long-range shooters, Parker has never taken a lot of three-pointers. Last season, he averaged only one a game, preferring to get into the lane and set up his teammates from deep. In general, it’s easier to make long-range shots when your feet are set as opposed to off the dribble. That’s why, from an efficiency standpoint, your best players should be creating shots for themselves in the paint and shots for others at the three-point line.

San Antonio’s offense is a perfect example. Last season, Duncan and Parker combined for 29 field goal attempts a game, 28 of them from two-point range. As a result, the vast majority of the Spurs’ 21 three point attempts came from their role players, who spaced the floor and created the room for Duncan and Parker to score in the paint. When five skilled players are moving in unison to create shots for one another, it’s very difficult to stop them.

France’s shot distribution wasn’t quite as balanced in Slovenia, mainly because they were relying so heavily on Parker. Neither Nicolas Batum nor Boris Diaw emerged as a consistent second-scorer and neither of their two big men (Alexis Ajinca and Johan Petro) was much of a threat to do anything. While they got some timely contributions from others in the championship rounds, for the most part, the French were only going to go as far as Parker could take them.

His performance against Spain in this year’s semifinals was one of the best of his career. In what was the de-facto championship game, Parker carried France to a 75-72 OT victory over the two-time defending champions. Against a Spanish team loaded with NBA players, the French couldn’t afford for their star guard to be off the floor for any amount of time. Parker was a one-man offense, scoring 32 points on 11-19 shooting in 37 minutes.

After a somewhat underwhelming performance in the championship game against Lithuania, Parker admitted that he was winded. With training camp set to open at the beginning of October, that has to be a concern for Spurs fans. While there’s no definite proof that international competition makes players more susceptible to injury in the regular season, it certainly can’t help. Avoiding fatigue is why many top players skipped out on EuroBasket this year.

However, throughout Parker’s lengthy career with San Antonio and the French national team, injury is one dog that has never really barked. In 12 years in the NBA, he’s been incredibly durable. He’s only had one season where he’s missed more than 20 games. That’s partly Gregg Popovich’s insistence on resting his star players as they get older, as Parker averaged only 32 minutes a game last season, and partly the contact-free way he plays the game.

Even though he spends much of his time in the paint, the floater allows Parker to avoid the hits many of his peers take. He’s not out there trying to dunk on anyone or power through much bigger players. Discretion is the better part of valor, something Parker has always understood. That’s how Emmitt Smith became the all-time leading rusher in NFL history: by never taking big hits. Young guys can pop back up after a fall; old guys try to avoid getting hit in the first place.

As a result, Parker should be able to play at a very high level for a while to come. He isn’t quite as fast as he was when he entered the NBA, but his feel for the game has more than made up for any loss of quickness, a dynamic which shouldn’t change dramatically until his mid 30’s. As he gets older, his hamstrings are probably as his biggest concern, but as long as Pop manages his minutes and Parker continues to take care of his body, he should be fine.    

With five All-Star appearances, three All-NBA team selections, three NBA titles and an NBA Finals MVP on his resume, Parker would be a Hall of Famer if he retired tomorrow. If he can play as long as Steve Nash, who knows what he will end his career with. While Parker has put a lot of miles on his body, it hasn’t been a lot of stop-and-go city driving. If have a top-of-the-line sports car and you only take it at 55 on highways, it will last a really, really long time.