Manu Ginobili says Pau Gasol is a 'prototype Spur,' partially because he's a 'foreigner'
It does feel odd that it took until 2016 for Pau Gasol to become a member of the San Antonio Spurs. His back to the basket game, passing acumen, ability to rebound and block shots and overall sense of self seems tailor-made for the team that has won five championships since 1999 (two years before Pau entered the NBA).
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His heavily-stamped passport, let’s be honest, also plays a role in letting observers feel as if Gasol (who signed with the team as a free agent during the offseason) came straight out of central casting.
Manu Ginobili, with the Spurs since 2002, has certainly noticed:
Ginobili on Gasol: "He's the prototype, almost, of a Spur. Very good player, high basketball IQ, experienced…foreigner." #spurs
— Tom Orsborn (@tom_orsborn) November 5, 2016
Pau Gasol, indeed, is a very good player. He is a two-time NBA champion, a six-time NBA All-Star, he’s won three Olympic medals with Team Spain and a 2006 World Championship. He is experienced, having logged over 1100 combined regular and postseason games since coming into the NBA in 2001, and anyone who has had the pleasure of watching Gasol work for more than five or ten minutes at a time would quickly note that he boasts a significant basketball IQ.
He is also … well, he’s foreign. At least in comparison to Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who was born outside of Chicago. And in comparison to where most NBA players spring from, and from where the San Antonio Spurs play: Pau was born in Barcelona, and we’re incredibly lucky that this giant of a man and a player decided to come stateside.
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The Spurs weren’t the first NBA team to commit to important foreign-born players, nor foreign-born All-Stars. The team made a point to seek out and secure the rights to less obvious types, those who took a little more scouting than, say, checking the box score for the highest scorer on the squad that just lost to Team USA. Nothing against the famed Los Angeles Lakers or Chicago Bulls scouting staffs from the 1980s and 1990s, but the Spurs went far beyond glomming onto types like Vlade Divac or Toni Kukoc. No Dirk Nowitzkis, ‘ere, either.
Ginobili knows, as he was the penultimate pick in the second round of the 1999 NBA draft. Longtime backcourt mate Tony Parker managed to make his way up into the second round in 2001, but not before some teeth gnashing from stateside teams that were trying to solve the forever Omar Cook vs. Jamaal Tinsley conundrum heading into that evening.
Various helpers – from Fab Oberto to Francisco Elson to Boris Diaw to Beno Udrih to Patty Mills to Tiago Splitter to Rasho Nesterovic – have also seen significant time with the franchise as they dot from championship contender to championship contender.
The 2016-17 season is less than two weeks in, and it would be a bit rash to declare this year’s verison of the Spurs on par with championship winners of the past – especially as the team takes to its first campaign without Tim Duncan since 1996-97. Still, the team started with a 5-1 burst, entering Saturday night’s contest against the Los Angeles Clippers, working as expected with two-way legend Kawhi Leonard leading the way.
Ginobili, in his advanced years, is a little behind. At age 39, Manu (who considered retirement both last summer and the one prior) is shooting just 36 percent from the floor, while Parker has made just a third of his looks from the field to start 2016-17.
Gasol has fared a little better in a starting role, contributing nine points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.3 blocks in 23.7 minutes per contest, but the defensive issues that have hounded him his entire career followed him into to Texas. And straight to the front of the rim.
Meanwhile Ginobili, on a one-year, $14 million contract that the Philadelphia 76ers helped push the Spurs into committing to, is selling the San Antonio house (and its $2 million price tag) that he’s lived in since 2004. From the San Antonio Express-News:
“I wanted to sell it,” Ginobili told the San Antonio Express-News on Friday. “I wanted to change houses. People do that all the time. I stayed in that house for 12 years. I thought it was time for a change.”
Will Manu stick in San Antonio once his playing days are through?
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not defined. I probably won’t stay full time. I’m not the type of guy who will stay 12 months in a place, especially at the beginning (of retirement), but I am going to keep a place in San Antonio initially and spend time in Argentina somewhere else.
“But I am just not going to leave San Antonio and never come back. But I don’t see myself as the type of guy who is going to stay 12 months in one place. I will go back and forth.”
And the Spurs, with five foreign-born players on its current roster and nine working overseas with San Antonio holding their draft rights, will continue to keep that steely eye focused on courts that stretch past the state of North Carolina. Or whatever shows up on CBS in early spring.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!