RealGM

Hey yall it's your younger brother from Cleveland,I always wanted to ask you guys was Manu always this good?
I can remember briefly watching a few Spurs games in 2002 and it would always seem like he made a lot of mistakes,or Pop was yelling at him, or he was missing easy shots or something but in 2003 he started breaking out into this super competitive dude who was going to the rack hard and dogging.

Manu is the type of player I enjoy watching cause he loves the game and he go so hard,but was he always this good and was there a growth process with his game.

I Love and Respect you guys team and Fan Base looking forward to your responses, peace to every one who visited DNA-Level-C via San Ann during the Finals.

I enjoyed talking to some of yall @ the Q and thanx for helping me be patient with Mike Brown.

I remember back in the 03 playoffs (his rookie year) he made some big plays. I think he showed lots of flashes in his first 2 years and then really broke out in 05.

Didnt he get hurt in the Olympics or a qualifing tournament right before he joined us that year? I remember people saying that he was an amazing dunker. Im pretty sure it was an ankle injury then too. Is it the same one?

bmw42690 wrote:I remember back in the 03 playoffs (his rookie year) he made some big plays. I think he showed lots of flashes in his first 2 years and then really broke out in 05.

Didnt he get hurt in the Olympics or a qualifing tournament right before he joined us that year? I remember people saying that he was an amazing dunker. Im pretty sure it was an ankle injury then too. Is it the same one?

You are correct....

I remember he had some amazing baseline dunks vs the Lakers in 03. He also had an amazing putback vs Dallas in the last sec. He mad some timely threes as well.

He did get hurt i believe the game after the USA game where Argentina beat them. He had an ankle injury that bothered him all season long until the playoffs.

I have seen like 5 Spurs games in person and i think Manu has played in 2 of them. That up and under dunk he had on the Lakers was pretty sweet.

It took Manu a little while to figure out where and when to try his "Manu stuff" in NBA games. But you could see very early on that he was going to be a special player.

When healthy, he's definitely up there with the best in the league. Good shooter, great slasher, gets to the FT line, pesky defender, creative passer, plays with energy & heart...trouble is that his style of play prevents him from being healthy all the time. Even on his best days, he's probably feeling 85-90% at the most.

he suffered an ankle injury during the 2002 WC, so he wasn't really healthy during his rookie year.
imo he was basically this player without the experience and knowledge of the NBA game helping him avoid somedumb mistakes Popovich used to punish immediatly, and without the star status letting him have the ball in his hands long enough.
if you watch his debut against the lakers, I think youcan already see 80% of the current Ginobili.