Manu Ginobili with Karl Malone's durability

[sp6r=underrated]

Karl Malone is one of the NBA great iron men. He missed an absurd 11 games through his 18 year stint in Utah. He averaged for his career 37 mpg. He was quite simply a tank.

Manu quite simply was not a tank. Under this hypo Manu maintain everything else about his career, same body type, skill-set everything but he's now as durable as Malone.

Is he the 2nd best shooting guard of all time?

[Eagle4]

No. Especially if you gave Wade Karl Malone durability as well.

[frica]

30-35 year career if he still has Manu's minute restrictions.

[penbeast0]

funny

[No-more-rings]

He would have to be up there with Kobe i think.

[Dr Positivity]

If he's playing 37-38 minute per game, I still don't think he's as good as players like West, Kobe, Wade. His per minute production would probably take a little bit of a hit having to conserve energy and facing extreme defensive attention.

[Jaivl]

Clear #3 IMO, although he probably edges out Kobe by sheer longevity? I don't know.

[KGtabake]

If you give to Malone Ginobili's durability, is he still a top10 PF? I like this one better
To your question: Yes, he's the second best SG. Loved everything about Manu, one of the smartest players ever and a born winner.

[sp6r=underrated]

If you give to Malone Ginobili's durability, is he still a top10 PF? I like this one better
To your question: Yes, he's the second best SG. Loved everything about Manu, one of the smartest players ever and a born winner.

The answer to your question is probably not. Malone's bruising style with Manu's durability is a recipe for a career similar to Grant Hill's Magic days.

[Asianiac_24]

#3 all time SG

[Matt15]

He edges out Dwayne Wade at #3 but still behind Kobe.

[feyki]

James Harden.

[Owly]

As ever with these things it depends on interpretation.

OP references longevity and durability (a long career in years, with few games missed and a high minutes average), so I assume Manu is getting broadly that (and thereby circa doubling his career RS minutes from 26859 to something in the vicinity of Malone's 54852 - unless one is adapting another framing - e.g. he still goes from Argentina via Italy, starting his NBA career late). This is in and of itself a big deal.

How big a deal is dependent quite a bit on how you view Manu, personally I see little reason not to be bullish in general given production and impact numbers (but I get that this is more bullish than some might argue with him continuing at the same rate with higher minutes, though given he seems able to play them as an assumption of the question ...), and a lot on how exactly you stretch out Manu to a Malone shaped career (Malone has a 13 year prime [89-01] with 25.8 PER, .235 WS/48) are we saying Manu has 13 (or 11 chopping slightly lower year off each end, or 10 years accounting for '94 down year) that are at fairly peak adjacent levels. Also whether Malone's playoff woes affect Manu and if not how one maps this new Malone-shaped career to the playoffs.

All that said, and accounting for the array of possible interpretations (and personal tastes, I may be lower than the norm on Kobe, and have sort of been pushed to regard West more as a point though my instinct is to go with the traditional categorization [or to simply call him a guard as a getout]) 2nd SG certainly doesn't sound crazy as a possibility to me.

[LiSTWithLani]

I still think that I have Wade over him, in terms of peak talent. Defensively, Wade also had game changing abilities. Take Many out of SA and he might have been a better player, with higher usage and more leeway as a creator.

Hard to know if he needed capped usage, like Ray Allen/ Michael Redd or could have benefitted, like Kobe and DWade.

Lani@LaniStern.com

[Jaivl]

I still think that I have Wade over him, in terms of peak talent. Defensively, Wade also had game changing abilities. Take Many out of SA and he might have been a better player, with higher usage and more leeway as a creator.

Hard to know if he needed capped usage, like Ray Allen/ Michael Redd or could have benefitted, like Kobe and DWade.

Lani@LaniStern.com

Allen (Redd is a much lower caliber of player which has no place in this comparison) had average on-ball skills and a lack of playmaking chops - Manu had both on spades. I think he's clearly more like a fragile Kobe than an Allen.

[cupcakesnake]

So Ginobili averaging 37mpg on his career (playing 40mpg some seasons) instead of playing 25mpg (only creeping above 30 in 2 seasons)? Malone came to the NBA at age 22 (1476 games, 54852 minutes + 193 games, 7907 minutes in the playoffs), Ginobili came at age 25 (1057 games, 26859 minutes + 218 games, 6075 minutes in the playoffs). Crazy that Manu played in more playoff games than Malone, but has almost 2000 less minutes.)

I mean the only knock on Manu is minutes played. We're taking away his biggest weakness in this comparison and turning it into an all-time strength. This is like giving Jason Kidd Steph Curry's jumper.

Just looking at his per 36 (and imagining he plays more than 36), we're looking at a guy who averages 19-5-6 for his career, putting up maybe 24-6-7 in his peak years. Top 5 in steals all-time. Best passing 2-guard ever. His defense probably becomes more widely acknowledged and he'd be a perennial all-defense fixture. He's still playing for Pop in this scenario, and isn't going to be taking more than 15 FGA per game. His volume would still not touch Kobe/Wade/Harden so there'd still be a "hipster pick" aspect to GInobili fandom.

I think Ginobili's playoff inconsistencies would be more highlighted in this scenario. We remember all the Ginobili clutchness, but commonly dismiss his bad series because he wasn't first in line to receive blame. 2008 vs the Lakers, 2013 vs Miami, 2015 vs Clippers are the well known ones, but he also had a few series where he didn't contribute at a star level but the Spurs still won. On the other hand, some of those playoff series were probably due to injury, so the Malone durability might wipe those out.