Manu Ginobili: New Article (Traslation needed)

[BG_Spurs_Fan]

I don't understand why it's so hard to believe that you can have two unrelated injuries in a row. I mean, it's not like it never ever happened before. Happened to Ian this very same season. Happened to Jacktovas (or however it's spelled). And those guys are much younger and didn't play anywhere near as many games as Manu. Sometimes you can just have a tough break. Happens to the best of them.



I don't think he's trying to disprove anything about the Olympics. I think he just wants to make sure there's an official story (coming first hand from him) that the medical staff told him the injuries are unrelated. At this point, you would be arguing against a medical staff that had MRIs, CT scans, etc in their hands and evaluated what happened. A medical staff paid by the Spurs, not Manu. There's no reason for the doctor to lie. I still have to hear from somebody on the organization saying the injuries are related and that playing in the Olympics brought this to him. Hasn't happened yet. And I'm not holding my breath.

I tend to agree with this notion more than any other theory.

No one can make a case that Manu's injury plagued season was caused by the 5 or 6 games he played in the Olympics. He aggreviated an injury, which was originally from the Phoenix series but he was cleared to play by doctors. Had he not played in the Olympics, there is no one who can make a valid case that he would have been healed for the start of the season without a surgery. For all we know he could have aggreviated the same injury at the start of the season, or even during practices in the summer, not related to participating in the Olympics at all.

Also, if anyone still can't understand why Manu and Tony are so desperate to play for their national teams and what this mentality brings to the Spurs,then IMO you're missing a big point of why this franchise is so great. Playing for their respective national teams has also contributed to them becoming better players and thus helping the Spurs win rings. You can't have the best of everything, sometimes you take the good with the bad. In this case the good is much more than the bad.

[SenorSpur]

Well, that it sucks for Duncan, and the entire Spurs organization and fan base we can definitely agree on. The timing on this injury couldn't have been any worse. Especially after he was finally coming back into a rhythm and put together a few very high level games. But what you gonna do? It's not like he went out there, grabbed a hammer and fracture his fibula on purpose. This stuff happens. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is. Hopefully we'll be a little more lucky next season and I firmly believe our big 3 have at least one more run in them.

While it's true that some measure of luck does factor into a team's championship hopes, I'd prefer the Spurs FO opt to add a bit more skill and talent around their Big Three, rather than age and declining ability.

[ElNono]

While it's true that some measure of luck does factor into a team's championship hopes, I'd prefer the Spurs FO opt to add a bit more skill and talent around their Big Three, rather than age and declining ability.

Agreed too. I think Gooden could be a good addition moving forward. I'm reserving judgement until after training camp (if he's still around). And while some people will only focus on the glass half empty part of this season, there has been bright spots also. Tony has definitely gone up a notch on a consitent basis. I think Mason was a great addition looking forward, so is Hill. We have started to move away from the old trend of hiring mostly vets to actually getting young guys with the right at ude and character. Of course, we can all complain about Hill not playing, but that doesn't mean he wasn't the correct choice, and that he won't be on the map in the future.
Now, none of this will mean much if TD isn't healthy, but provided he is, I'm starting to really like this team looking forward.

[SenorSpur]

Agreed too. I think Gooden could be a good addition moving forward. I'm reserving judgement until after training camp (if he's still around). And while some people will only focus on the glass half empty part of this season, there has been bright spots also. Tony has definitely gone up a notch on a consitent basis. I think Mason was a great addition looking forward, so is Hill. We have started to move away from the old trend of hiring mostly vets to actually getting young guys with the right at ude and character. Of course, we can all complain about Hill not playing, but that doesn't mean he wasn't the correct choice, and that he won't be on the map in the future.
Now, none of this will mean much if TD isn't healthy, but provided he is, I'm starting to really like this team looking forward.

Agreed again, too. As long as we're waxing poetic about the prospects for the future, don't forget the expected arrival of Gist, the expected debut of Ian and ongoing development and possible integration of Hairston. Combine all that, along with an intelligent free agent pickup (i.e. John Salmons or a Shane Battier), should make for a formidable roster for next year.

[DAF86]

Agreed again, too. As long as we're waxing poetic about the prospects for the future, don't forget the expected arrival of Gist, the expected debut of Ian and ongoing development and possible integration of Hairston. Combine all that, along with an intelligent free agent pickup (i.e. John Salmons or a Shane Battier), should make for a formidable roster for next year.

Rasheed, don't forget Rasheed.

[RandomGuy]

Si dependiera de mí, me quedaría toda la vida en San Antonio


En este último viaje a Sacramento no tenía mucho sentido moverme. Lo mejor fue quedarme en casa y seguir con mi bota ortopédica esperando y viendo el partido por tele... Pero cuando arranquen los playoffs voy a viajar a todos lados con el equipo, como siempre, aunque esta vez va a ser muy raro, desde afuera. Va a ser la primera vez en siete años en la NBA que me pierda un partido en los playoffs.

Cuando se confirmó la lesión fue un shock fuerte. Entiendo que se hable mucho de mi situación y sé que se trajo otra vez el tema de los Juegos Olímpicos. Por eso siento que es importante aclarar que lo que me pasó fue en la otra pierna, la derecha, y no tiene nada que ver con lo del tobillo izquierdo, en China.

El peroné es un hueso que prácticamente no soporta peso, casi todo recae sobre la tibia. En un principio se vinculó una cosa con la otra, pero ahora los médicos me dicen que eso no tiene mucho sentido. Para ir a jugar con la selección, los Spurs me dieron el alta médica, del mismo modo que ahora cuando volví en la NBA. Siempre hay riesgos y eso es lo que pasó, tuve una mala racha de lesiones. Soy consciente de que el año que viene al terminar la temporada puedo ser agente libre, y tanto los Spurs como yo podemos elegir. Pero esto no cambió mi forma de pensar. Lo dije muchas veces y lo repito: si dependiera de mí, me quedaría en San Antonio toda la vida.

Por todo esto, entre otras cosas, el equipo no está pasando un buen momento. No recuerdo que en otra temporada hayamos llegado a los playoffs siendo un equipo con un juego tan irregular. Las lesiones no son un problema técnico-táctico. Yo me perdí el 55% de los partidos, pero además Tim Duncan tiene sus problemas en las rodillas, a veces está dolorido y no puede jugar normalmente. El equipo se modifica mucho, trata de readaptarse y lo sufre mucho.

Igual, en los primeros 60 partidos de la temporada estuvimos segundos y hasta con tres partidos de ventaja. En los últimos 20 se complicó por esto de las lesiones.

Nosotros ahora podemos quedar entre los puestos 2 y 5. Más allá de tener ventaja de localía, por el rendimiento de los rivales, cualquiera parece ser lo mismo. Lo que todos quieren evitar, por supuesto, es el octavo lugar, porque los Lakers sí mostraron ser superiores a todos. Después todos tienen sus pros y sus contras: Portland es un gran equipo, atlético, pero algo joven e irregular; Houston es fuerte, pero puede sufrir la falta de un líder ofensivo y con talento como McGrady en los playoffs; a New Orleans lo conocemos, tiene muchos altibajos; Dallas está repuntando... Cualquiera es un peligro.

Del otro lado, Cleveland dio un pasito adelante respecto de Boston, que tiene problemas sin Kevin Garnett, y Orlando. Los playoffs son todos los años distintos, pero creo que esta vez Cleveland tiene jugadores nuevos que pueden marcar diferencias, como Delonte West y Mo Williams. Si algún equipo hace lo que hicimos nosotros en las finales de 2007, cerrándole la defensa en la pintura a James, puede tener problemas afuera, porque son buenos tiradores a pie firme. A LeBron lo rodearon mejor que otras veces y él está intratable.

Van a ser unos playoffs muy distintos, pero me voy a sentir parte del equipo, como siempre. Las sensaciones son distintas, claro. Cuando gané los campeonatos, el de 2005 fue el más emocionante, porque fui determinante como nunca, en 2003 fue una emoción increíble, pero con otro rol, y en 2007 también tuvo otro sabor. Me va a tocar aportar como hincha, pero voy a sentirme responsable. Siempre es así, cuando nos va bien o cuando nos va mal.

Manu

I surprised myself at how much of this I was actually able to figure out. Neat.

[SenorSpur]

Rasheed, don't forget Rasheed.

Heavens no. Don't want to forget Rasheed.

[mytespurs]

Heavens no. Don't want to forget Rasheed.

Prior to ginobili's injury and TD's tendinitis, Reggie Miller practically had an orgasm when the the spurs did not trade for rasheed....he was like if the spurs had sheed, I'd pick them to beat the Lakers, even with bynum!!!

[LionZion]

Manu seems like a simple guy. From the day he's been in SA, whatever he has said has been simple. Mostly its things like "I didn't play hard enough. I didn't give enough of myself. I could have done better. I will do better next game. I can play smarter next time" etc.

If less than ten games in the Olympics broke whatever, you can bet 82 regular season games would have done it for sure. And then if the second injury happened because of the first(I think its because of all the mileage up until this point eventually causing a stress facture with maybe the previous injury hastening it a bit, who knows) then we probably looking at a time frame stretching probably into next season for Manu to recover from it all. This way, everything is done and now hopefully next season is enough time to get his body feeling good.

Its weird how as a fan anyone can ask more of Manu. What else is left to give.
One of the most common statements is TD is THE window. While that statement is true, I think its a subset of the Big Three is THE window(except for '99). Unless in these playoffs Tony elevates to a whole new level to alleviate the deficiencies of Timmy's knees and no Manu. It all started with Timmy and but it will end with any three.

[angel_luv]

They're going to be a very different playoffs, but I will still feel part of the team, as usual. The way I'll feel about it will be different though, obviously. When I won championships, the 2005 one was the most emotional for me because I was determinant like I never was. In 2003 was really incredible, but I had a different role. And 2007 also felt different. It's going to be my turn to support the team as a fan, but I still feel responsible for anything that happens. It's always like that, when things go well and when they don't.

Manu

2005 is my favorite Spurs championship too.

[manubili]

At least he's healing both ankles this way.

[SenorSpur]

Prior to ginobili's injury and TD's tendinitis, Reggie Miller practically had an orgasm when the the spurs did not trade for rasheed....he was like if the spurs had sheed, I'd pick them to beat the Lakers, even with bynum!!!

I understand why. Come to think of it, so would I.

[spurs_50_21]

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/

[timvp]

I don't understand why it's so hard to believe that you can have two unrelated injuries in a row.

It's possible but these puzzle pieces fit together too perfectly. If you come back from ankle surgery with a different gait and you are going to suffer an overcompensation injury, the first injury I would guess is a stress fracture on the other leg. It could be some sort of coincidence, but those odds would be long.

It's not like he rolled his ankle to cause the stress fracture. It was either overcompensation or his body is breaking down. I'll go with overcompensation.

I mean, it's not like it never ever happened before. Happened to Ian this very same season.

Mahinmi rolled his other ankle. And that injury was healed pretty quickly. It was his original injury that never healed.

Happened to Jacktovas (or however it's spelled).

It did?

And those guys are much younger and didn't play anywhere near as many games as Manu. Sometimes you can just have a tough break. Happens to the best of them.

It's possible and I'd believe it with just about any other scenario ... other than a player coming back with an altered gait who suffers a stress fracture on the opposite leg. Those pieces fit too perfectly.

Duncan's plantar fasciitis in '06 was blamed on his ankle sprains of '05 ... and those dots are much harder to connect than what happened to Manu.

I don't think he's trying to disprove anything about the Olympics. I think he just wants to make sure there's an official story (coming first hand from him) that the medical staff told him the injuries are unrelated. At this point, you would be arguing against a medical staff that had MRIs, CT scans, etc in their hands and evaluated what happened. A medical staff paid by the Spurs, not Manu. There's no reason for the doctor to lie. I still have to hear from somebody on the organization saying the injuries are related and that playing in the Olympics brought this to him. Hasn't happened yet. And I'm not holding my breath.

The Spurs would never out him. If Manu wants it to be known that the injuries were absolutely not related, the Spurs would be more than happy to hold a press conference complete with graphs, photos and expert analysis. Heck, Buck Harvey was halfway negative about Manu in an article and then was forced to write about three apology articles after it

We'll never know the absolute truth. Personally, I wouldn't think differently of Manu no matter the cir stances. I know he'd be out there right now if at all possible giving 110% effort. And I already can't wait to see him at the start of next season

[temujin]

Ginobili is very polite.

The fracture is more than likely a compensation due to the previous injury.
It happens, expecially if you are forcing the recovery.

Moreover, the fracture was probably there in february and was incorrectly downplayed to a stress reaction, a notion that finds no place in medical dictionaries.

For the future, however, my warm advice to him is that he seeks independent medical opinions, that are unrelated to the Spurs or to the Argentina national team.

[TMTTRIO]

Manu must be very bored if he's now taking pictures of little creatures found at his house

[DAF86]

Manu must be very bored if he's now taking pictures of little creatures found at his house

I bet that's a Sequ or Ducks present.

[ElNono]

It's possible but these puzzle pieces fit together too perfectly. If you come back from ankle surgery with a different gait and you are going to suffer an overcompensation injury, the first injury I would guess is a stress fracture on the other leg. It could be some sort of coincidence, but those odds would be long.

It's not like he rolled his ankle to cause the stress fracture. It was either overcompensation or his body is breaking down. I'll go with overcompensation.

I actually think that the reason he was explicit about explaining that the fibula carries almost no weight whatsoever on the leg (almost all of the weight handling is done by the tibia aka shinbone and femur), is to exactly dispel the idea of overcompensation. Furthermore, stress fractures on the tibia (and femur) due to overcompensation are extremely more common than on the fibula on athletes. It was actually hard for me to find examples of fibula fractures strictly by overcompensation way back when I looked for it. Google kept coming up with tibia fractures.
As far as his body breaking down, well, he did do a Bone Mineral Density test to check bone integrity and things like osteoporosis, and he said it came back ok. So as far as we know, his bone structure and density is ok.
For all we know, his fracture could have been developing for a while now, and it could have started with an awkward fall or something like that. It's really speculation, but it's just as good a reason as any, really.
I'm actually thrilled it's 'just' a bone injury and not a ligament/muscle issue. Those hardly ever recover 100%, and flare up all the time.

Mahinmi rolled his other ankle. And that injury was healed pretty quickly. It was his original injury that never healed.

Correct. My point was that is not uncommon to have two injuries in a season. For all we know, Manu could have started to develop the stress reaction before he had his left ankle problem. Let's not forget a lot of these guys play with some little pain here and there all the time. Manu specifically said he started being more cautious when little pains like this started to appear after his left ankle surgery.

It did?

Bruno I believe posted a day or two ago about either him or Victor Sanidizke (man, these names are tough) hoping through teams and falling down to injuries one after the other. Some people just can't catch a break.

It's possible and I'd believe it with just about any other scenario ... other than a player coming back with an altered gait who suffers a stress fracture on the opposite leg. Those pieces fit too perfectly.

Duncan's plantar fasciitis in '06 was blamed on his ankle sprains of '05 ... and those dots are much harder to connect than what happened to Manu.

I recall people mentioning his play for Team USA in '04 having a carry over also way back when. Some people in these very forums were wondering if we shouldn't trade him when he still had value...
But then again, you know who those people are as much as I do.

The Spurs would never out him. If Manu wants it to be known that the injuries were absolutely not related, the Spurs would be more than happy to hold a press conference complete with graphs, photos and expert analysis. Heck, Buck Harvey was halfway negative about Manu in an article and then was forced to write about three apology articles after it

I agree. At the same time, it wouldn't be Manu like. He's probably the most straightforward guy as far as reaching out and telling it like it is. It would be hard to fathom he would do it any differently now.

We'll never know the absolute truth. Personally, I wouldn't think differently of Manu no matter the cir stances. I know he'd be out there right now if at all possible giving 110% effort. And I already can't wait to see him at the start of next season

Absolutely. Aside form the usual suckers, I don't think there has been any doubt about his commitment to give it all for the Spurs.

[TMTTRIO]

This is the latest from facebook. Hmm really interesting that he's starting to work out again. I know there's no chance at all he comes back during the playoffs but still a little interesting.

Hoy volví a la actividad. Todavía no puedo hacer con impacto, pero al menos dejé de lado la vida sedentaria. Nadé un buen rato, hice bicicleta y un poco de pesas, solo para mantener un poco de estado físico, también para liberar tensiones, no les voy a mentir!

[completely deck]

and for the English crowd:

Today I returned to activity. I still can not do it with impact, but at least I get out of the sedentary life. I swam a good while, rode the bike and lifted some weights, just to keep some physical state, also to release tension, I will not lie!

[SpursFan0728]

This is the latest from facebook. Hmm really interesting that he's starting to work out again. I know there's no chance at all he comes back during the playoffs but still a little interesting.

tensiones, no les voy a mentir!

Sorry if this was asked but is there ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE than Manu could be back if we make it to the finals or something?

Even though he will be out of rhythm, having him on the bench will boost the team's morale.