Thinking Basketball ep.6 Manu ginobili

[Raps in 4]

He was the second best player on those mid 2000s Spurs teams.

[dhsilv2]

So I'll jump in and agree with you that "hairpulling" is an accurate adjective to describe how everyone saw Ginobili, to the point where Robert Horry said that the Spurs would have won 10 titles if Ginobili just did what he was told instead of improvising.

For context, Horry made the statement as a retort to Pierce. It certainly wasn't a well thought out statement.

Pierce "Dream is lucky Jordan retired. You would only have five rings if Jordan didn’t retire,"

Horry's replied "Let me just say this: You got yours because, if Manu Ginobili would have did the things he was supposed to do, I would have had like 10 championships,"

Manu was hair pulling play to play. To doc and the prior discussion, I don't believe he was hair pulling game to game in nearly the same fashion. Also Horry, love him as a player, but a commentator he lets his personal views on the people influence his views on the players. Add in he just seems to have all kinds of issues with the spurs.

I'd also add, Manu got hurt and that certainly might have cost the spurs a title or two.

[dhsilv2]

Most underrated player ever, not even close.

Some of you need to learn what underrated actually means. This dude got tons of attention and is in the Hall of Fame. Quit throwing around the word like it's nothing.

he didn't make the top 75 team. I think that's a pretty staggering statement to how insanely underrated he is. He should be in the 40-60 range easily. And closer to 40 than 60 imo. So yes, he's underrated.

[Doctor MJ]

So I'll jump in and agree with you that "hairpulling" is an accurate adjective to describe how everyone saw Ginobili, to the point where Robert Horry said that the Spurs would have won 10 titles if Ginobili just did what he was told instead of improvising.

For context, Horry made the statement as a retort to Pierce. It certainly wasn't a well thought out statement.

Pierce "Dream is lucky Jordan retired. You would only have five rings if Jordan didn’t retire,"

Horry's replied "Let me just say this: You got yours because, if Manu Ginobili would have did the things he was supposed to do, I would have had like 10 championships,"

Manu was hair pulling play to play. To doc and the prior discussion, I don't believe he was hair pulling game to game in nearly the same fashion. Also Horry, love him as a player, but a commentator he lets his personal views on the people influence his views on the players. Add in he just seems to have all kinds of issues with the spurs.

I'd also add, Manu got hurt and that certainly might have cost the spurs a title or two.

So, both of you make good points, here's what I take from the Horry comment, recognizing that a grain of salt is required given the context he said what he said:

Horry doesn't say that if there weren't times when he was frustrated at a Ginobili improvisation that went bad.

Horry almost certainly doesn't say that if he never saw anyone else get frustrated.

It makes sense that everyone would tend to get frustrated when a "role player" doesn't do what the coach tells him to do, and so such players will have a tendency to get held back by the coach. Sometimes, this is the right move for the coach, and sometimes it's not.

In a nutshell: It's the right move when the coach's scheme is the best plan for the use of talent he has on his roster, and it's the wrong move when it's not the best use of talent on his roster.

How to tell the difference? Well, the truth is you can't know for sure until you see enough sample data to make the judgment...but you as coach have to make judgments before you see the data.

And so what we have here is a situation where Pop understandably didn't recognize at first that Ginobili improvisation was better than his preferred schemes, and even when he saw the value he was ginger about committing too much of his team's scheme around them.

Aside from the fact that it was really freaking hard to understand why Ginobili's improvisations had such a built in advantage unless you understood pace & space, which literally no head coach in the NBA understood when Ginobili was a rookie, there's also the whole tripod nature of the team's offense:

If you focus the offense around Ginobili's on-ball game, what the hell is Parker doing out there? Knowing what we know now, I think the right move was to get rid of Parker early on and replace him with someone who could actually shoot, but if Parker is on the team, then probably the right way to play Ginobili isn't too far off from what they actually did after they moved off of the Duncan post-up offense:

Ginobili's the best off-ball offensive player on the team, and Parker basically needs the ball either in his hands or a threat to be in his hands in order to be valuable, so you give Parker on-ball primacy even if you recognize that Ginobili is actually the best on-ball offensive player too.

The big change I'd suggest is just the recognition that if you're playing Ginobili off-ball, you have to actively USE him as an off-ball threat. It doesn't make sense to send Ginobili to the corner so that another player can iso unless you're simply using the play to give the other guy practice in case Plan A and Plan B are not available on a given possession, which means such plays should be used quite sparingly.

[Rust_Cohle]

There are as many people in this thread saying "severely underrated" as people saying "overrated."

I think that speaks to the kind of player he was.

Not really, it speaks to a lot of people who didn't watch him play. Bill Simmons isn't the sharpest tool in the shed but I 1000% agree with his take of we will see another 10 Wade's before we see another Ginobili. He was incredibly underrated and still is to this day. Without him, the Spurs have 3 less titles.

[picc]

RPM is not calculated DRPM + ORPM = RPM. RPM is calculated first and then the O and D parts are calculated. RPM is more accurate than the D or the O portion. This means someone could get too much or little credit on the O or D. You can't criticize the more accurate measure by pointing out the less accurate measure.

I did not criticize the stat. What I was saying is simply RPM or any +/- tool cannot be used to make absolute conclusions about a player, or especially one player vs the next, and require more than surface analysis to understand. Not only does your "lesson" not refute my point, it actually supports it.

[dhsilv2]

RPM is not calculated DRPM + ORPM = RPM. RPM is calculated first and then the O and D parts are calculated. RPM is more accurate than the D or the O portion. This means someone could get too much or little credit on the O or D. You can't criticize the more accurate measure by pointing out the less accurate measure.

I did not criticize the stat. What I was saying is simply RPM or any +/- tool cannot be used to make absolute conclusions about a player, or especially one player vs the next, and require more than surface analysis to understand. Not only does your "lesson" not refute my point, it actually supports it.

I don't disagree with you that you can't just take RPM and ignore looking at the player, the context, etc. But you can't took at RPM and then see that the DRPM looks high and point out that the DRPM is too high so RPM is just over valuing his DRPM, and thus his RPM is too high.

In that context, it would just make sense than the balance between D and O was off when the split the metric out. You'd need to start with an analysis for why the RPM as a whole is too high. I don't believe you did that.

I'd also add in, I think Manu was roughly of equal value defensively to Bowen. Manu's off ball, team defense, was much better than Bowen's imo. Obviously, he wasn't the ball stopper that Bowen was.

[Yoshun]

There are as many people in this thread saying "severely underrated" as people saying "overrated."

I think that speaks to the kind of player he was.

Not really, it speaks to a lot of people who didn't watch him play. Bill Simmons isn't the sharpest tool in the shed but I 1000% agree with his take of we will see another 10 Wade's before we see another Ginobili. He was incredibly underrated and still is to this day. Without him, the Spurs have 3 less titles.

I watched him and Wade their whole careers, I disagree with you completely. Replace Manu with Wade on those Spurs teams and they win more rings, and more games.

[NO-KG-AI]

wheres the thinking basketball episode where he shares his insights on the and 1 he gave to dirk in 2006 during the last min of game 7 that lost the spurs the trip to the finals and probably another ring?

Well most people with any sort of brain aren’t going to base an analysis of a player on a single play from their career. At least not anyone without some sort of personal bias or axe to grind.

[NO-KG-AI]

I've seen posters try to make arguments that Manu was actually the best player in the league in 05. That's where I start drawing lines and say it's gone way too far. I think "superstar in his role" is the best descriptor.

Manu was one of a kind though. Good video.

It’s tough because Manu doesn’t really have an analogous player to draw a comparison too. Everyone who has ever pumped out his superstar numbers were pushed into a bigger minutes role.

The question of whether he could extend that impact into bigger minutes is the only question. His impact was superstar level in huge sample sizes and deep playoff runs, it’s not even debatable. Not best player in the league, but a match for even the best wings.

It’s really weird how harsh people are on his minute totals, because for his prime(age 26-33) he was around 29 minutes and 70+ games 6/8 seasons, with 32 mins per game in the playoffs. This isn’t a whole lot different from what some stars are playing today.

[dhsilv2]

I've seen posters try to make arguments that Manu was actually the best player in the league in 05. That's where I start drawing lines and say it's gone way too far. I think "superstar in his role" is the best descriptor.

Manu was one of a kind though. Good video.

It’s tough because Manu doesn’t really have an analogous player to draw a comparison too. Everyone who has ever pumped out his superstar numbers were pushed into a bigger minutes role.

The question of whether he could extend that impact into bigger minutes is the only question. His impact was superstar level in huge sample sizes and deep playoff runs, it’s not even debatable. Not best player in the league, but a match for even the best wings.

It’s really weird how harsh people are on his minute totals, because for his prime(age 26-33) he was around 29 minutes and 70+ games 6/8 seasons, with 32 mins per game in the playoffs. This isn’t a whole lot different from what some stars are playing today.

So much this. The guy really didn't play THAT much less. I'd add to this, in his prime he also started more games than he came off the bench. We just recall that during the playoffs in 2005 when he blew up, Pop moved him to the bench in the middle of the playoffs. he started all 74 games he played in 2005 during the season. And then the 2007 run, he was mostly a bench guy in the season and all of the playoffs.

If we look at cumulative box metrics like WS and VORP, he had 5 top 20 seasons in WS (3 were top 15, you know all nba level) and 6 top 20 VORP seasons (with 4 of those being top 10, CERTAINLY all-nba level). So even stats that take minutes into account saw Manu has an all nba player more times than his 2 3rd team all nba's and 2 allstar appearances would indicate.

Just to showcase however how much the media (who were the voters) spun Manu's career incorrectly, 2007 Manu was 8th in VORP and 14th in WS. He didn't start a game that year and as a result, he finished 39th in the all nba voting. Somehow the media at the time felt there were 38 guys more worth of the all nba vote than Manu. Manu of course was second on the spurs, by a margin in WS and VORP in the playoffs (Parker was not 3rd), and Tony wins finals MVP and the story of 2007 is about Tony's finals MVP and not Manu's insane impact and selflessness coming off the bench despite having second team all nba impact by some metrics, even accounting for his minutes.

[dhsilv2]

There are as many people in this thread saying "severely underrated" as people saying "overrated."

I think that speaks to the kind of player he was.

Not really, it speaks to a lot of people who didn't watch him play. Bill Simmons isn't the sharpest tool in the shed but I 1000% agree with his take of we will see another 10 Wade's before we see another Ginobili. He was incredibly underrated and still is to this day. Without him, the Spurs have 3 less titles.

I watched him and Wade their whole careers, I disagree with you completely. Replace Manu with Wade on those Spurs teams and they win more rings, and more games.

The statement wasn't that Manu was better than Wade...it was that Manu was more unique of a player.

[Rust_Cohle]

There are as many people in this thread saying "severely underrated" as people saying "overrated."

I think that speaks to the kind of player he was.

Not really, it speaks to a lot of people who didn't watch him play. Bill Simmons isn't the sharpest tool in the shed but I 1000% agree with his take of we will see another 10 Wade's before we see another Ginobili. He was incredibly underrated and still is to this day. Without him, the Spurs have 3 less titles.

I watched him and Wade their whole careers, I disagree with you completely. Replace Manu with Wade on those Spurs teams and they win more rings, and more games.

You missed the complete point of Bill’s quote. Try again.

[maradro]

I've seen posters try to make arguments that Manu was actually the best player in the league in 05. That's where I start drawing lines and say it's gone way too far. I think "superstar in his role" is the best descriptor.

Manu was one of a kind though. Good video.

It’s tough because Manu doesn’t really have an analogous player to draw a comparison too. Everyone who has ever pumped out his superstar numbers were pushed into a bigger minutes role.

The question of whether he could extend that impact into bigger minutes is the only question. His impact was superstar level in huge sample sizes and deep playoff runs, it’s not even debatable. Not best player in the league, but a match for even the best wings.

It’s really weird how harsh people are on his minute totals, because for his prime(age 26-33) he was around 29 minutes and 70+ games 6/8 seasons, with 32 mins per game in the playoffs. This isn’t a whole lot different from what some stars are playing today.

So much this. The guy really didn't play THAT much less. I'd add to this, in his prime he also started more games than he came off the bench. We just recall that during the playoffs in 2005 when he blew up, Pop moved him to the bench in the middle of the playoffs. he started all 74 games he played in 2005 during the season. And then the 2007 run, he was mostly a bench guy in the season and all of the playoffs.

If we look at cumulative box metrics like WS and VORP, he had 5 top 20 seasons in WS (3 were top 15, you know all nba level) and 6 top 20 VORP seasons (with 4 of those being top 10, CERTAINLY all-nba level). So even stats that take minutes into account saw Manu has an all nba player more times than his 2 3rd team all nba's and 2 allstar appearances would indicate.

Just to showcase however how much the media (who were the voters) spun Manu's career incorrectly, 2007 Manu was 8th in VORP and 14th in WS. He didn't start a game that year and as a result, he finished 39th in the all nba voting. Somehow the media at the time felt there were 38 guys more worth of the all nba vote than Manu. Manu of course was second on the spurs, by a margin in WS and VORP in the playoffs (Parker was not 3rd), and Tony wins finals MVP and the story of 2007 is about Tony's finals MVP and not Manu's insane impact and selflessness coming off the bench despite having second team all nba impact by some metrics, even accounting for his minutes.

Not to mention, if "playing against bench players" and "reduced minutes" were such fantastic boons, why aren't such stats dominated by 6th men, where are terry and Crawford and Iggy? Iggy was Mr death lineup on the best team.of all time, what was his rpm those seasons?


Also, pierce, ray, wade, Bosh, as examples of champion members of big 3s who were once big stats lone franchise players-

(Per100 poss to account for team pace, 3 years before / 3 years after joining big 3, last category steals + blocks)-

Pierce:
33.7/9/6.1/2.5
To
28.7/7.5/5.6/2.3

Allen-
33.8/5.9/5.1/1.9
To
25.4/5.1/4.1/1.6

Bosh-
32.7/14/3.5/2.5
To
26.9/11.6/2.7/2.7

Wade-
39/6.7/9.9/4.3
To
34.6/8.2/7.1/4.1
(And if you start one year after when he actually took a step back to lebron-
32.6/7.5/7.6/3.9)

Manu from 05-07 (chose these years bc of championships, 06-08 is actually a better stretch)
30.3/7.9/7/3.6 6066 minutes

[DwayneSchintzus]

If you followed him for any length of time at all, you could see that the numbers never told the story of Manu Ginobili.

Nevertheless, his numbers compare pretty favorably with some of the all time greats when you adjust for pace.

He is my favorite player of all time, nothing will ever change that. Just a tornado of skill, creativity, competitive fire, IQ and balls.

He has so many plays that are personal favorites of mine that I can't list them all. The NBA could go another 1,000 years and we wouldn't see another Manu Ginobili.

[VanWest82]

Wait, so Manu playing a higher percentage of mins vs bench players isn’t relevant now because we don’t see similar impact numbers from the Crawford types?? I liked Manu too but C’mon.

[Doctor MJ]

Wait, so Manu playing a higher percentage of mins vs bench players isn’t relevant now because we don’t see similar impact numbers from the Crawford types?? I liked Manu too but C’mon.

It's not that it's not relevant, it's that it's relevance isn't the end to the analysis and people have been going further in their analysis for many years.

If it were a massive +/- advantage in general, we'd see it for 6th men in general, but we don't.

We'd also expect the effect to get smaller in the playoffs, but with Ginobili it gets bigger.

So, while it's still relevant the details of how Ginobili was used, such concerns don't actually explain Ginobili's data the way many expect they would.

[VanWest82]

Wait, so Manu playing a higher percentage of mins vs bench players isn’t relevant now because we don’t see similar impact numbers from the Crawford types?? I liked Manu too but C’mon.

It's not that it's not relevant, it's that it's relevance isn't the end to the analysis and people have been going further in their analysis for many years.

If it were a massive +/- advantage in general, we'd see it for 6th men in general, but we don't.

We'd also expect the effect to get smaller in the playoffs, but with Ginobili it gets bigger.

So, while it's still relevant the details of how Ginobili was used, such concerns don't actually explain Ginobili's data the way many expect they would.

Playing more mins against inferior players isn't a big advantage? There is no analysis you can do that corroborates that, and if you think there is I'd suggest you need to go back to the drawing board and re-evaluate your assumptions.

The reason Manu was unique is because he wasn't really a 6th man. He was a star player who Pop convinced to come off the bench and play less mins. There are no other examples of this, at least not to this extreme, so comparing it to 6th men in general doesn't work.

Have you considered that perhaps playing off the bench against inferior players and playing less mins overall allowed Manu to not only perform better in those mins but conserve more in the tank which boosted his playoff performances? Don't you think the differences in regular season vs playoff mins is evidence of this?

I'm not suggesting Manu wasn't a star player because he was 6th man or played less mins, just that it defies logic to think it didn't help him from an individual performance and impact standpoint. Or put another way, why do we think Pop chose to do this? Wasn't part of that calculus that Pop believed Manu to be more effective, and therefor the team was more effective? And Pop didn't just try this out for a season or two. At some point we're basically arguing we're smarter than Pop and he erred in not playing Manu much more and against better players because he would've been just as effective and therefore Spurs would've been better. Seems highly dubious to me.

[VanWest82]

I don't get people comparing Manu's mins to today's players either. Here were the mins leaders in 2006, for example:

Iverson 43.1
Lebron 42.5
Arenas 42.3
Kobe 42.0
JJ 40.7
Marion 40.3
Odom 40.3
Antawn 40.1
Artest 39.4
Bosh 39.3
Brand 39.2
Gasol 39.2
RJ 39.2
Redd 39.1
Pierce 39.0
KG 38.9
Allen 38.7
Wade 38.6
....
....
....
Manu 27.9

And people are arguing Manu didn't benefit from playing way less mins, and against inferior bench players no less????

[dhsilv2]

Wait, so Manu playing a higher percentage of mins vs bench players isn’t relevant now because we don’t see similar impact numbers from the Crawford types?? I liked Manu too but C’mon.

It's not that it's not relevant, it's that it's relevance isn't the end to the analysis and people have been going further in their analysis for many years.

If it were a massive +/- advantage in general, we'd see it for 6th men in general, but we don't.

We'd also expect the effect to get smaller in the playoffs, but with Ginobili it gets bigger.

So, while it's still relevant the details of how Ginobili was used, such concerns don't actually explain Ginobili's data the way many expect they would.

Playing more mins against inferior players isn't a big advantage? There is no analysis you can do that corroborates that, and if you think there is I'd suggest you need to go back to the drawing board and re-evaluate your assumptions.

The reason Manu was unique is because he wasn't really a 6th man. He was a star player who Pop convinced to come off the bench and play less mins. There are no other examples of this, at least not to this extreme, so comparing it to 6th men in general doesn't work.

Have you considered that perhaps playing off the bench against inferior players and playing less mins overall allowed Manu to not only perform better in those mins but conserve more in the tank which boosted his playoff performances? Don't you think the differences in regular season vs playoff mins is evidence of this?

I'm not suggesting Manu wasn't a star player because he was 6th man or played less mins, just that it defies logic to think it didn't help him from an individual performance and impact standpoint. Or put another way, why do we think Pop chose to do this? Wasn't part of that calculus that Pop believed Manu to be more effective, and therefor the team was more effective? And Pop didn't just try this out for a season or two. At some point we're basically arguing we're smarter than Pop and he erred in not playing Manu much more and against better players because he would've been just as effective and therefore Spurs would've been better. Seems highly dubious to me.

If that were the case would we not expect his RPM type stats to drop in the seasons he started and go up in the ones he came off the bench?

But the numbers don't really show that. Manu was 3rd in 2005 starting for example. He was 1st in 2008, mostly off the bench. And really year to year he was up and down more dependent on injuries than starting.