Manu's Agent says....

[underdawg]

It was a tight race this year in the Western Conference, but it may be reaching to say that no Manu, no playoffs. Without Ginobili, who knows how the rest of the team may have played. Maybe some players would have stepped up. The Butterfly Effect makes it difficult to assess what would have happened. All we can do is look at his performance in the regular season, which was quite good, and his performance in the playoffs, which ranged from awesome to not so good.

Wow that's stretching it a bit. Without a doubt no Manu - definitely no playoffs. Some of the other posters here are right in saying our inconsistent bench was the real cause of his fatigue - not just his style of play. Tony was hurt and Manu carried the team during an important stretch while we were trying to stay within range of the #1 seed. Pop's always tried to limit his minutes, but because no one consistently stepped up his hand was forced. That said, Manu has to be healthy in the playoffs for us to win the championship. If we don't get consistent scoring (via FA) that's going to be pretty difficult. I understand all of the arguments for country pride and that's admirable, but isn't it possible that Manu loves playing basketball more than he loves playing basketball for his country? If that's the case, I surely hope he's being as careful and responsible as possible if this injury has the potential to be a career limiting/threatening injury. It's one thing to have pride - it's another thing to have foolish pride.

[Manu'sMagicalLeftHand]

You know we've won the thread when ducks and TPark are the ones arguing for the other side.

Mission acomplished

[Mr.Bottomtooth]

You know we've won the thread when ducks and TPark are the ones arguing for the other side.

Mission acomplished

[diego]

its amazing how some people are capable of blaming manu for this seasons elimination, then from there assuming he will be injured again next playoffs and blame him for that when it hasnt even happened.

no faith whatsoever.

and the funny thing is, the spurs are going to end up extending his contract anyways, because they'll be hardpressed to get equal value for the money. unless ducks and tpark became GM, and pulled a chris wallace ahead of that. im sure duncan will get great looks with smith and maggete replacing manu and barry

[Manufan909]

Where does he rank with a bum ankle?

Top 3 if you go by All-NBA teams. And what kind of ed up question is that? How about you ask that for any other player who got in a freak accident? I wonder if Fakers fans would've thrown Kobe under the bus if he'd played with one ankle in the WCF instead of Manu.

[BuzzerBeater]

Imagine what the trophy case would look like without Manu's contributions the past 5 years.

[ElNono]

We should be worrying what our bench is going to look like next year, not Manu. If we don't get a solid bench that gives Tim, Tony and Manu some rest, it's not gonna matter wether Manu played the Olympics or not.

[Manudona]

its amazing how some people are capable of blaming manu for this seasons elimination, then from there assuming he will be injured again next playoffs and blame him for that when it hasnt even happened.

no faith whatsoever.

and the funny thing is, the spurs are going to end up extending his contract anyways, because they'll be hardpressed to get equal value for the money. unless ducks and tpark became GM, and pulled a chris wallace ahead of that. im sure duncan will get great looks with smith and maggete replacing manu and barry

And I would add that all this dis-loyal fans also blame manu of being dis-loyal. It is funny when they say: "The Spurs should trade Manu while it has value, after all NBA is a business", then a few paragraphs/posts later, they start crying about Manu not being loyal to the team that should trade him while he has some value!

[Manufan909]

Hopefully he gets Argentina another Gold, and then goes on to contibute to Trophy #5, that'll shut them the up for AT LEAST the next offseason.