CourtVision: Manu Ginobili at 57

[manufan10]

With the 56th pick in the 1999 NBA draft, the Golden State Warriors selected Tim Young, a 7-foot Bay Area kid who grew up in Santa Cruz and played college basketball at Stanford.
"Tim's a presence," said Warriors head coach P.J. Carlesimo. "He's got good size, he does a little bit of everything — passes the ball well, shoots the ball well, he can block some shots. He worked out very, very well for us. Obviously, we know him very well. He's absolutely a first-rate person."


“With the 57th selection in the 1999 NBA draft, the San Antonio Spurs select Emanuel Ginobili [gee-no-BEE-lee] from Argentina.”
Johnson: “He plays for Reggio Calabria in Italy. He’s 6-foot-6, a 2-guard. He is a native of Argentina.”
Rick Majerus (TNT analyst): “This kid understands coming off of a screen, and he understands moving off the ball to get his shot, and he’s very sound defensively, I’ll tell you that. I think that that’s a good pick at that point in the draft.”
Majerus was right, but it’s doubtful he had any idea how good of a pick that was. Maybe nobody knew. Even the Spurs, who had drafted Leon Smith with their first-round pick, would be fibbing if they said they knew; 5,060 days later, the kid from Bahia Blanca just reminded us again. Last night, he added another clip to his highlight reel and another bullet on his Hall of Fame application. Almost 14 years after that 1999 draft, the Warriors are wishing they had picked Manu at 56.
Ginobili’s career will likely leave behind four legacies. First, he’s one of the best second-rounders ever. Second, he's the only active NBA player to catch a flying bat, unwittingly igniting an animal-rights firestorm. Who can forget the PETA official statement:

To bludgeon a 4-ounce animal to death, it takes either a small man or a totally unthinking one—with no respect or consideration for lives humbler than his own. This is a time when athletes in particular need to be on their best behavior around any animal and show that they have brains and a heart, not just reactionary brawn.
Bats always try to avoid contact with humans, and there are plenty of easy ways to keep bats out of a basketball arena (or your home). We hope that the next time someone's life is on the line, Manu Ginobili will take just a few seconds to think before he acts.

Third, Manu will always be associated with the first group of truly influential international NBA players. Along with Dirk Nowitzki and the Gasol brothers, Manu has shown that you don’t have to be from America to be a great NBA player. In 2013, it’s easy to forget how American-centric the NBA used to be. Even the 1998-99 Spurs had little if any international flavor (depending on whether you count Tim Duncan). In contrast, the 2012-13 Spurs had eight international players on their opening-night roster, and many NBA rosters include guys from France, Spain, Brazil, Australia, Italy, and elsewhere. Now, virtually every team has at least one international scout, scouring countries like Ukraine and Greece in search of the next Manu or Dirk.
Manu’s fourth legacy is stylistic. He's a big, attacking guard who loves to shoot 3s, and his brand of play foreshadowed future NBA trends. Long before Jeremy Lin or James Harden, Ginobili’s shooting portfolio favored shots either very close to the rim or behind the 3-point line. If everybody played like Manu, there would be hardly any midrange shots in the NBA. In fact, this is the shooting profile that the league as a whole is currently trending toward. Both LeBron James and the Houston Rockets, for example, are taking markedly fewer midrange shots these days.
Ginobili’s shot chart from this season reveals a few things. Beyond the arc, he performs pretty much at league-average, with the exception of the corners, where he's quite good. His chart reveals that he hits only 34 percent from the spot where he hit his huge game winner last night; he made 23 of his 67 attempts there this season, slightly below the league average of 35 percent.




Manu's chart also shows that he’s still very effective near the basket, which remains central to his game. It's also a place where many of his backcourt peers around the league fail to score efficiently. As an attacker, Manu is fearless, and the enduring image of his game might be him careening into the restricted area, getting fouled, and falling to the court. Because of his fearlessness, it's no surprise that he gets hurt a lot. Still, few other players can match Ginobili's abilities to either score, get fouled, or make borderline insane passes that usually work out somehow.
Manu Ginobili is a treat to watch. He still provides the Spurs with a huge spark off the bench that enables them to frequently “win” the ends of quarters or outscore their opponents’ second units. But he’s far more than just a bench guy. And as he proved last night, Ginobili remains part of the Spurs’ crunch-time lineup that, although old, still has something left in the tank. In the next few weeks, we’ll see just how much.

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-tr...ginobili-at-57

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[manufan10]

Just saw someone posted this in another thread... oh well.

[100%duncan]

Deserved its own thread tbh.

[Mel_13]

I thought this thread was going to be about a 57 year old Manu Ginobili.

[ElNono]

lol PETA

[DrSteffo]

Ok but Manu is not part of the first wave of influential international nba players...Divac, Petrovic, Sabonis, Hakeem and some others opened the door so to speak.

[Sparrowhawk]

Looking it in restrospective, he is the best player on that draft, and it's not even close.

[tesseractive]

Ok but Manu is not part of the first wave of influential international nba players...Divac, Petrovic, Sabonis, Hakeem and some others opened the door so to speak.

Hakeem was a college player like Duncan, and some people don't count that as international because the idea is that they got so good by playing college ball (which is debatable at best) and they're found through conventional college scouting, not by traveling to tournaments somewhere in the Slovenian countryside.

I think the point Goldsberry was trying get across is that while there was an earlier generation of international players that proved they could play in the NBA, the Dirk-Tony-Manu-Gasol generation proved they could be MVP-level players and #1/#2 players on le teams.

Edit: there was also a bias for a long time that you could go abroad and find guys at the extreme end of the bell curve -- Hakeem, Dikembe, Sabonis, etc. -- and pure shooters, but that was about the limit of things. A dozen years ago, the idea of a French point guard or a slasher from Argentina that could make elite plays in traffic was something that few teams would take seriously.

[manufan10]

I thought this thread was going to be about a 57 year old Manu Ginobili.

When I first saw the article le on Grantland I thought the same thing, tbh... I couldn't figure out what the 57 meant.

[DrSteffo]

Hakeem was a college player like Duncan, and some people don't count that as international because the idea is that they got so good by playing college ball (which is debatable at best) and they're found through conventional college scouting, not by traveling to tournaments somewhere in the Slovenian countryside.

I think the point Goldsberry was trying get across is that while there was an earlier generation of international players that proved they could play in the NBA, the Dirk-Tony-Manu-Gasol generation proved they could be MVP-level players and #1/#2 players on le teams.

Edit: there was also a bias for a long time that you could go abroad and find guys at the extreme end of the bell curve -- Hakeem, Dikembe, Sabonis, etc. -- and pure shooters, but that was about the limit of things. A dozen years ago, the idea of a French point guard or a slasher from Argentina that could make elite plays in traffic was something that few teams would take seriously.

I understand that but the four players I mentioned are all in the Hall of Fame and they were actually not that bad either Not important though.

[MmP]

What I love the most of Manu's game is that he' exploits every part of his game to the maximun. Imagine guys like, Lebron or Westbrook moving better of screens, understading better the use of his strenght not just to score, they'd be unreal and that's where Manu usually stands out.
Another point of his game is that he's slowly teaching that using your 1-2 step when driving it's not mandatory to be straight forward and that if you think about it's pretty logical and coherent. With his version of 'euro-step' you can pretty much decieve every player in the league, there's not way you can know where's he gonna end up when he takes strides. And he's influencing the league slowly: Harden, Wade. I think, someday, we'll look back and see how determinate was Manu 'awkward' yet very effective game was when many players use his style. Changing and influencing the game worldwide is to me on of the best accolades possible.

Go spurs go!

[tesseractive]

I understand that but the four players I mentioned are all in the Hall of Fame and they were actually not that bad either Not important though.

Fair point. Though, wow, I had no idea that Vlade was a Hall of Famer.

[DrSteffo]

Fair point. Though, wow, I had no idea that Vlade was a Hall of Famer.

Sorry, my mistake it was just the FIBA Hall of Fame.

[urunobili]

awesome article. though it covered just a few of his accolades and actual impact on the game and league from all that he could be accounted for, it was good nonetheless

[Frankie23]

Manu didn't invent things, but he sure leaves a legazy.
For example, the EURO step, now used by Wade, Rondo, LeBron, Rose, etc etc.
Attacking the rim or shooting 3s, with not much mid range game.
Between the oponent legs passing.
Many players copy or get something of his unusual game to nowadays NBA..

[kaji157]

Evendoe John Havlicek did it before, another legacy Ginobili and Pop seem to have left together is the idea that you can have one of your 3 best players off the bench and do it for the good of the team. No complains about it.
As of this day a coach can play off the bench pretty much every guy in the league and point out to Ginobili if any player has a problem with it. He has also made an standart to put the team before personal accolades as did most spurs stars.