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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.
"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.
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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.”
Manu Ginobili: What a game by the @spurs! Great work by the whole team. Super proud of these guys! Intense game!
Again, given the context that Paul is a powerful agent, it’s crazy that he’s just out here firing off takes like he’s on Around the Horn. When discussing the Lakers this season, Kellerman says that Austin Reaves should be in a Manu Ginobili role on a championship team, which Paul agrees with. Kellerman: “Ideally, Austin Reaves…is Ginobili. In an ideal world…” Paul: “On a championship team?” Kellerman: “On a championship team, he’s the killer sixth man.” Paul: “Yeah.”
Manu Ginobili: I was at The Boy From St. Croix premiere last night at the Austin Film Festival. Hope you get to watch it soon!! Brilliant work by multi-Emmy winner Scott Duncan... Tim's bro!! Very cool! 👏👏
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Derrick White: Manu always gave me confidence. I wouldn’t say I’m “Manu-ish,” but I kind of saw what he did and thought, “I can emulate that.” I remember the first time I was really playing — against the Warriors. Tony was out, Dejounte was out, and Patty was in foul trouble. We didn’t have another point guard. I was the fifth string. It was me — I had to go in. It was the end of the quarter. I was standing there, looking at Manu like, “You want the ball?” And he was just like, “You go. This is on you.” So we ran this play that Manu usually runs, but he let me run it. I made a play — made a spin and shot a layup. That was big for my confidence. Manu trusted me not to turn it over.
Crazy Sats: Since the @NBA started tracking play-by-play stats in the 1996-97 season, no player has received more traveling violation calls than Kevin Garnett, with a total of 495. Conversely, no player has played more career games (since 1996-97) without a traveling violation call than Manu Ginobili, with 1,275 games.
The 2004 Argentina squad was the peak of that country’s golden basketball generation. Led by Manu Ginobili, Luis Scola and Sanchez, they were the first team to beat Team USA in international play two years earlier at the FIBA World Championship in Indianapolis. That was brushed aside as a lesser tournament. But beating USA in the Olympics was a historic moment, for both Argentina and international basketball. Pepe Sanchez, who played collegiately for John Chaney at Temple and briefly in the NBA, is frustrated that it seems to be forgotten. “Just because we are a small-population country, I guess we are being overlooked,” he said. “If we were Americans, we would be in the Hall of Fame.” Symbolically, Argentina winning gold in 2004 was a basketball parallel to the Miracle on Ice in 1980 without the same geopolitical undercurrent.
Argentina did, and the result was a gold medal. But the impact stretched well beyond the South American country’s borders. It spurred further development around the world, including the United States. “They called them the Redeem Team. What were they redeeming themselves from?” Sanchez asked rhetorically. Hall of Famer Larry Brown, the USA coach in 2004 agreed with Sanchez. “Basketball has been getting better around the world because of what the Dream Team did in ’92,” Brown said after the tournament. “Rather than knocking our guys, we should give credit to the guys who won.”