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As a left-handed guard who comes off the bench, Spurs rookie Dylan Harper said he gravitated toward a fellow lefty sixth man in San Antonio legend Manu Ginobili, who now works for the organization as a special advisor. "I play a role I'm not used to [off the bench]," Harper said after the Spurs' 120-108 win over the Portland Trail Blazers in Friday night's Game 3, "but he kind of put in my head that you've got to impact the game in any way you can."
Harper, who totaled just 16 points in the first two games of the series, said Ginobili has been a mentor to him, adding that the Hall of Famer's "mentality" is what he tries to emulate most. "We have conversations about my role and stuff like that," he said. "It's next game up. If you have a bad game, once you get out of the shower, it's next game."
NBA Communications: Keldon Johnson set a Spurs franchise record with 1,081 bench points this season. He passed Manu Ginóbili, who scored 927 in 2007-08 – his Kia NBA Sixth Man of the Year season. Johnson joins Ginóbili as the only two players to win the award with San Antonio.
Spurs Hall of Famers Gregg Popovich, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and George Gervin were in attendance amongst a sell-out crowd at the Frost Bank Center adorned in a sea of bright T-shirts in the team's Fiesta colors. Was the pressure of having the hopes of a city and so many Hall of Famers on his shoulders too weighty for the 22-year-old Wembanyama? “I wouldn’t say weight. I would say it feels safe,” Wembanyama said. “It feels like if you trip, there’s a lot of hands that’s ready to catch you.”
Manu Ginobili: Not a bad ranking to be on... #ThanksAgainTD! Nada mal estar en este top5. #GraciasTD!
🇺🇸Not a bad ranking to be on... 😜 #ThanksAgainTD!
— Manu Ginobili (@manuginobili) April 15, 2026
🇦🇷Nada mal estar en este top5. 😜#GraciasTD! https://t.co/P2spLWz80i
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Manu Ginobili on losing 2013 Finals: That was the worst moment of my career. In other words, the worst moment was two days before that. Two days before that game, game number six, we are winning by three points. 15 seconds left. Q. The famous Ray Allen three-pointer. Ginobili: Well, LeBron hits a three-pointer... I don't think he'll get within two. Well, I don't know. The thing is, something happens that never happens before, and you just see that the party was getting ready to celebrate our championship, and then everything starts to be put away and we have to go back to game seven. Match seven, two whole days without sleep. In other words, I didn't sleep from the sixth to the seventh.
Manu Ginobili: When I got to the NBA in my first year I wanted to play like Kobe Bryant. I couldn't have peace like that, right? If you don't take a moment to say, "Wow, it's great to be here." But hey, those of us who are wired like that… Q. Do you think that today it's like a kind of vindication of the enjoyment that maybe wasn't there in your generation, and maybe kids today who are 23 or 24 can play in the NBA or can play top-level football or a hyper-competitive sport and be a little more relaxed, or is that idea still there? Because I hear you talking, I hear Jordan talking, and thousands of others… Ginobili: Kobe. Not that I compare myself to Kobe, no, but Kobe was 100 times worse than me. Q. That's what I'm getting at, and everyone says the same thing. So I also say, well, obviously there's a common ground where there's a lot of sacrifice, which isn't just about not going out because I was going to train or not seeing my family as much, it's also a personal sacrifice and dedication, even to the point of sacrificing enjoyment or pleasure, right? Ginobili: Yes, I think that pushes you to give a little more than you would if you didn't have that challenge, right? That dissatisfaction, in a way. Yes, I think there's a bit more focus on that in this new generation, right? Enjoying today, being more at peace.
RC Buford on Gregg Popovich: “He’s incredibly disciplined—one of the most disciplined people I’ve ever met. He comes into the gym five days a week, does his rehabilitation, and continues to get better. The most emotional part of his journey now is that Tim has been in the gym with him every day. When Manu, Tony, or Boris come in from out of town, they’re there with him every day as well. It’s incredible to see the love and respect they have for each other. None of those guys have to be there, and Pop would still be there whether they were or not. To me, that shows we have a different kind of relationship and emotional connection within our organization, because I don’t think there are many teams where you would see that.”
Gilbert Arenas: Manu Ginobili, did he actually fit the Spurs program right or was Pop that brilliant to understand what he had and just let him play? And these guys are fit around your style because, you know, we're all smart enough to do it because Ginobili from Argentina, he is like the number one option. So, his style fits how he played: ISO player, let's get it, pick and roll, I'm going downhill. There was no Tim Duncan he passed the ball to. There was none of that. Think about his style of play. Flashy, up and down, speed, energetic, electric. That was his style of basketball. That wasn't the Spurs style of basketball. Those shooting guards and three men, you sit your ass in the corner, you pump, fake, one, dribble shot, right? Pass and swing shot. Ginobili was a wild card, but they recognized it. Let him do him. And you have to be a smart coach to understand when you have a guy like that on your team to utilize him. And then you get your Kawhi Leonard. I mean Kawhi was the Spurs player, right? That's your typical Spurs player. Derrick White, that's the Spurs motto, right? But sometimes, hey, we need a little bit of different here.
Manu Ginobili, the former San Antonio Spurs star, is part of a group planning what's being called the Sports Performance Hub, described by the team as a next-generation sports, education and community development project. The privately funded, $280 million development will include a planned 10,000-seat stadium for Miami FC of the United Soccer League, along with elite sports training facilities, a basketball complex, a boarding school, a hotel, academic buildings and other amenities on a single campus.
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"You don't have to be blind to see the growth that Miami has experienced in the last 20 years," Ginobili said. "I remember when I started going to Miami in 2002, when I made it to the NBA, and what it has turned into is incredible. It has become not only a hub for Latin America, but a worldwide hub."
Local officials have praised the proposal. Mayor Steve Losner said late last year the project could "be an incredible asset, while providing long-term benefits to our local economy." City documents outline plans for tennis and pickleball courts, walking paths and playgrounds in the first phase, followed by training facilities, athlete development programs and performance technology centers.
Patty Mills: First day of preparing for the 2014 NBA finals: LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and the Miami Heat. So I get to practice. You can't believe how intense this feeling is to be like, "We're back. All right, everyone, lock in." That's the feeling as you're driving the practice. Keeping it light but not too joking around. The clock is counting down before it goes off, and then we start, and sure enough, it goes off, and one of the coaches says, "All right, everyone in the film room, we're starting in the film room," which was probably understandable. So we all go into the film room, and I sit in the second row in the middle, Manu Ginobili behind me, always kicking me in the head or slapping my knee or playing some sort of game. But then we sat. So here we are, and you can feel the like the not tension in the room, but you could just feel like, all right, you know, what's the game plan here? You know, we're going to get this thing done. And Pops is at his table in front of the whiteboard and the TV, and he's looking down at the palm cards that he always has, and he looks up, and he looks at all of us, and he says, "Uh, do you know who does anyone in here know who Eddie Mabo is?" And straight away, like I got a lump in my throat, and I can only imagine what my face looked like, but I was just speechless. Is he asking everyone in the room who Eddie Mabo is? Eddie Mabo, in my culture, is a very significant person, and you put him up there with Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela and those types of people, and what he was able to do in Australian history for indigenous people. He's the one who really put indigenous Australians on the map, and what he was able to do. Overturn the land rights decision. And in my head, I was like, there's no way he's asking this right now. I thought this was going to be about LeBron James and the Miami Heat.
It's about the reigning Rookie of the Year and the most recent No. 2 pick in the NBA draft making their forebearers proud, too. “They’re so fearless,” Parker said of Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper. “That’s how I was. That’s how Manu (Ginobili) was.”