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I thought Manu would be the 1st player to ever win the Euroleague, Olympic gold medal and a NBA championship and knew Tony would someday be an NBA finals MVP.
All these draft days got me curious, did you know Manu when drafted? You thought he was a scrub, good baller, wasted pick?
And before he came in in 02 , what did you expect from him?
Same for Tony
Im curious...I wasn't here in 01 and 02, so I never read your opinons.
Personally I had high hopes on Manu, he had a great WC 2002 so I kinda knew he might earn some minutes but he totally amazed me the way he iniatlly played, with that much confidence.
And TP was a total surprise, I knew he was fast and a good player but being so young and unproved it could have turned out anywhere.
I thought Manu would be the 1st player to ever win the Euroleague, Olympic gold medal and a NBA championship and knew Tony would someday be an NBA finals MVP.
I didn't have any expectations of either when they came in.
Both topped out any hopes that I could have had.
A 2nd rounder and a very late first rounder being all-stars?
That kind of luck doesn't happen.
I thought Tony looked like a little kid in his daddy's suit when he went up and shook Stern's hand, but I was excited the Spurs got the player I heard they wanted, and figured I'd trust their talent evaluation. When Ginobili was drafted I had no idea who he was and never expected to hear the name again.
Oh yeah, I was happy as that the Spurs drafted Leon Smith for Dallas and not for themselves that day.
thought tp was going to be better then aj
thought manu would be a great role player
I was really surprised and baffled about Tony Parker. I really wanted Lorenz Woods or whatever his sorry ass name was. Didn't think a thing about Ginobili since he was one of the last picks in the draft.
manu-didnt really care who the spurs got at that time i was only 10 years old
parker-i remember on a mock draft his picture looked like damon stoudemire,my dad and I were rooting for the spurs to pick joe forte luckily that didnt happen
I was fairly excited about Parker. With all due respect to Avery, The prospect of a young, quick PG running the show was intriguing.
When Manu was drafted my first thought was, "Who?". I thought he was Italian at first and I thought he had a cool name. I read a lot of press about him, but my expectations were not that great.
It is because the Spurs drafted Ginobili and Parker that I took more of an interest in international basketball. If those two were not Spurs, I can honestly say, I still wouldn't care that much about basketball outside the U.S.
prior to the draft of ginobili, he was already world superstar and played great in the world cup tournament, it's funny how american fans didn't know him...
2001 FIBA Americas Championship MVP
2002 FIBA World Championship in Indianapolis All-Tournament Team
Maybe because he was drafted in 1999?
The biggest reason I don't care about international basketball . . . euro-ball fans are arrogant and mal-informed.
haha, and which year he actually came to play for the spurs?
After the Tony pick: WTF? Since when do the French know how to play basketball????? What a waste of a 1st round pick!
After the Manu pick: Ok, probably will never see the NBA floor. And I waited all night for that?
The question was what did we think on draft night in '99, weirdass.
Two completely different situations.
Tony was a mid-first round pick in many mock drafts who unexpectedly fell to the Spurs at 28. He was no mystery man. Most (including me) were excited at the time the Spurs got him.
Manu, on the other hand . . . Nobody knew who he was when he was drafted (any more than we knew his companion draftee, Gordon Giricek.)
Were you guys surprised that a this young FRENCH player had an US name?
I'm curious to know what kind of descriptions you had of him from the press...
Did they only mentioned his speed or also ability to score/go to the rim, his mental toughtness, his precocity...?
if some of you remember...
the only word about parker was his speed. that was it.
Don't remember Manu's draft. I learned about Ginobili in the 20001-2002 when people on the forum were talking about him.
With Tony, I was watching in my room and when they drafted him, I literally said: "Who?, Why?". So yeah.
Tony....I had a feeling that he would become a good decent point guard but I didn't expect him to be as good as he was.
Manu.... I didn't know anything about him and I didn't expect him to ever come into the NBA or come over from Europe. The funny thing is that nobody knew who he was and for a while they were pronouncing his name all wrong (Ginobelleeeeeeeeeeeeee).
I was pronouncing his name:
Gee-No-Be-Lee
Loved the Tony pick. Phil Jackson raped the Spurs in the 2001 playoffs by putting Kobe on our PGs, and really disrupted the offense. It became QUITE clear that we needed much more quickness and ball handling at the PG position. I remember the first Laker game of TPs rookie year. Phil tried that on Tony, and he crossed over, blew by Kobe, then slammed on the brakes, forcing Kobe to both leapfrog and foul him. Keep in mind, that was also super young, super quick, super athletic Kobe from 2001, not the current older version. I don't think Kobe has guarded him more than a dozen possessions since then.
I had no idea who Manu was in 1999, or Giricek either. No one ever mentions GG when they talk about great Spurs late picks. He never played for us, but neither did Scola, and that dead horse gets beat to death repeatedly.
With Parker, I was so happy to see the Spurs draft a point guard that actually had a chance to start. Corey Alexander and Chris Whitney had worn me down. I actually thought Manu would turn out to be nearly everything he actually turned out to be, which is to say, I was completely delusional. I told a co-worker that the Spurs would have an international starting backcourt of allstars for the next ten years.
For most Spurs fans this was a "Who" pick! Sorry, I really don't believe that the Spurs FO knew they had struck GOLD. Both players have exceeled expectations. Hopefully, Tiaggo too.
I remember mookie was like, we got this young french guy, he's not that good yet, but Pop is gonna make him into a player.
The next thing I know he's starting, getting to the playoffs, and making Gary Payton look like an old washed up scrub on his own court.
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