RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #39 (Manu Ginobili)

[Joao Saraiva]

I think Dwight is greatly underrated by most. I am not sure where he will land - or where he should land - but it's nice to see sobriety in this conversation.

I wanted to vote for him.. unfortunately he's not been nominated yet.

Who are you currently considering - not a voter but I do like Davis

Voted for Manu this round. I kind of have an asterisk cause of his lower minutes, but he did it for so much time it becomes hard to factor that in. As an initiator he was always the best guy in the Spurs, Idk if in these threads but in older threads I remember seeing the stats with him initiating offense and with other guys, and he was definitely the best Spur on offense. Basketball just was played a lot more trough the post tough, so the Spurs didn't initiate offense trough him as often as they should. But Manu is one of the all time greats on offense. Davis would be cool too, but I have problems with him not being available for such big portions. I feel I'll get Kidd in before Davis too.

[OhayoKD]

Induction Vote 1:

Barry - 3 (AEnigma, trelos, Clyde)
Artis - 4 (beast, LA Bird, Samurai, Ohayo)
Ginobili - 6 (Doc, hcl, Rishkar, Joao, OSNB, f4p)
Baylor - 1 (trex)
Davis - 2 (iggy, HBK)

No majority. Going to Vote 2 between Ginobili & Gilmore:

Artis - 3 (AEnigma, Clyde, trex
Ginobili - 3 (trelos, iggy, HBK)

Manu Ginobili 9, Artis Gilmore 7

Manu Ginobili is Inducted at #39.



Nomination Vote 1:

Pierce - 1 (AEnigma)
Green - 3 (beast, Doc, hcl)
Schayes - 4 (Rishkar, Clyde, LA Bird, OSNB)
Howard - 3 (trelos, Joao, Samurai)
Drexler - 1 (trex)
Westbrook - 2 (iggy, Ohayo)
Reed - 1 (HBK)
none - 1 (f4p)

No majority. Going to Vote 2 between Schayes, Green & Howard:

Green - 1 (Ohayo)
Schayes - 0 (none)
Howard - 0 (none)
none - 5 (AEnigma, trex, iggy, HBK, f4p)

Eliminating Howard. Continuing runoff between Schayes & Green:

Green - 0 (none)
Schayes - 2 (trelos, Samurai)
neither - 1 (Joao)

Dolph Schayes 6, Draymond Green 4

Dolph Schayes is added to Nominee list.

Not sure if this changes anything but as I brought up before, HCL outright voted for westbrook when westbrook was listed as a nominee and had voted to nominate westbrook the thread before. There's no precedent for that situation I think, but given Westbrook was listed as a nominee when that vote took place I'd be in favor of counting it towards his nomination.

Hmm.

1. Timeline seems off to me. Unless I'm confused, hcl didn't post until after I did my voting post, and I posted my correction to the Nominee list before I voted. It's of course possible that he didn't see this when he made his voting post, but seems like it was there to be seen.

2. I don't think we can correct for stuff like this in the thread, but Westbrook can still get in and Inducted before Schayes.

[Jaivl]

Kind of a rhetorical question -- What's Manu's argument over... erm, I don't know, a guy like Jimmy Butler, other than 689 minutes of playoff on/off (that flips over the much bigger regular season sample over the same time period)?

There surely are lots of threads about Manu coming, think we have Billups'd this one.

[Doctor MJ]

Kind of a rhetorical question -- What's Manu's argument over... erm, I don't know, a guy like Jimmy Butler, other than 689 minutes of playoff on/off (that flips over the much bigger regular season sample over the same time period)?

There surely are lots of threads about Manu coming, think we have Billups'd this one.

Someone who knew nothing about this data would assume that you were saying Butler had better +/- numbers in the regular season than Ginobili.

Of course, the opposite is true, and is a rather obvious argument for Ginobili over Butler, since you asked.

Re: Billups'd. fwiw, I absolutely expect there's going to be anti-Manu blowback now. That's how it goes. Hopefully some folks will go into it with an open mind.

[Owly]

Kind of a rhetorical question -- What's Manu's argument over... erm, I don't know, a guy like Jimmy Butler, other than 689 minutes of playoff on/off (that flips over the much bigger regular season sample over the same time period)?

There surely are lots of threads about Manu coming, think we have Billups'd this one.

Someone who knew nothing about this data would assume that you were saying Butler had better +/- numbers in the regular season than Ginobili.

Of course, the opposite is true, and is a rather obvious argument for Ginobili over Butler, since you asked.

Re: Billups'd. fwiw, I absolutely expect there's going to be anti-Manu blowback now. That's how it goes. Hopefully some folks will go into it with an open mind.

Other things that popped to my head, mileage may vary on them
1) he's slightly ahead in raw RS longevity as of right now/the start of the season (actually 689 minutes is less than either of Manu's leads RS or playoff, maybe you're binning some none prime years?). Mileage will vary in terms of longevity of quality of course.

2) stability. Whilst what happened to happen isn't what might happen every time for those who think that way, Butler has player his part (again mileage will vary, precise details unclear) in a fairly rapid hot potato-ing around the league, often in a dramatic way and including once from a serious contender. Manu maybe drew some interest from the 76ers near the end but stayed in one place with, so far as I can recall, minimal drama.

3) This is going slightly speculative. It's what I'd imagine to be the case and some are very uncomfortable using it even if it does apply (I'm on the fence). I think for the most part Manu wasn't paid like a star. At a glance I think his highest salary rank might be '13 where he's 23rd, but just dotting about, 3 years earlier he was outside the top 50. Obviously with both how they were drafted and CBA limited their ability to earn and ramp up early. We also generally can't be sure if players are giving up money from loyalty or whatever or the market (wrongly) just isn't there (though given what Philly could offer, somewhat hard to imagine Butler wasn't giving up money to get away from his team ... but we can't be certain what was offered). Butler taking his present contract through mid-thirties had some speculating it was the worst contract in the NBA (he's done well since then of course, just a point where it would be possible to trade money for potential team championship equity [via team spending power] if so inclined).

[HeartBreakKid]

Kind of a rhetorical question -- What's Manu's argument over... erm, I don't know, a guy like Jimmy Butler, other than 689 minutes of playoff on/off (that flips over the much bigger regular season sample over the same time period)?

There surely are lots of threads about Manu coming, think we have Billups'd this one.

I think he has a larger sample size that shows his consistency as a great player. Jimmy Butler seems streaky.

[Doctor MJ]

Kind of a rhetorical question -- What's Manu's argument over... erm, I don't know, a guy like Jimmy Butler, other than 689 minutes of playoff on/off (that flips over the much bigger regular season sample over the same time period)?

There surely are lots of threads about Manu coming, think we have Billups'd this one.

Someone who knew nothing about this data would assume that you were saying Butler had better +/- numbers in the regular season than Ginobili.

Of course, the opposite is true, and is a rather obvious argument for Ginobili over Butler, since you asked.

Re: Billups'd. fwiw, I absolutely expect there's going to be anti-Manu blowback now. That's how it goes. Hopefully some folks will go into it with an open mind.

Other things that popped to my head, mileage may vary on them
1) he's slightly ahead in raw RS longevity as of right now/the start of the season (actually 689 minutes is less than either of Manu's leads RS or playoff, maybe you're binning some none prime years?). Mileage will vary in terms of longevity of quality of course.

2) stability. Whilst what happened to happen isn't what might happen every time for those who think that way, Butler has player his part (again mileage will vary, precise details unclear) in a fairly rapid hot potato-ing around the league, often in a dramatic way and including once from a serious contender. Manu maybe drew some interest from the 76ers near the end but stayed in one place with, so far as I can recall, minimal drama.

3) This is going slightly speculative. It's what I'd imagine to be the case and some are very uncomfortable using it even if it does apply (I'm on the fence). I think for the most part Manu wasn't paid like a star. At a glance I think his highest salary rank might be '13 where he's 23rd, but just dotting about, 3 years earlier he was outside the top 50. Obviously with both how they were drafted and CBA limited their ability to earn and ramp up early. We also generally can't be sure if players are giving up money from loyalty or whatever or the market (wrongly) just isn't there (though given what Philly could offer, somewhat hard to imagine Butler wasn't giving up money to get away from his team ... but we can't be certain what was offered). Butler taking his present contract through mid-thirties had some speculating it was the worst contract in the NBA (he's done well since then of course, just a point where it would be possible to trade money for potential team championship equity [via team spending power] if so inclined).

Yup, those are reasonable things to bring up.

ftr, I think I'm higher on Jimmy than most. He didn't make the last Top 100, and I had no objection to that, but part of what was going on there was a cautiousness about what the 2020 Finals run meant. As things stand in 2023, I believe the Heat have won more playoff series than anyone else in the NBA in the 2020s with Jimmy being the fulcrum of all that. You add that on top of the way he clawed his way from nowhere in Chicago, and then pushed Minny & Philly to arguably their best performances in more than a decade before joining Miami and turning them from "when are they going to blow this treadmill up" to a regular deep playoff contender, this is a pretty substantial career.

Of all the current players not on the last 100, I expect Jimmy will be my vote for the highest debut this time, and frankly I'd lean Jimmy over Dame (who was on it last time) at the moment too.

So yeah, I'm not anti-Jimmy at all...but I do have Manu clearly ahead of him.

[Laimbeer]

It's surprising for me to see Manu ranked this high, tbh. You're still in the territory of legit alpha/MVP-ish players at this point. Manu just about defines situational greatness. Rings aside, he's closer to someone like Terry Porter than AD/Barry/Gilmore/Baylor. Those guys dominated games. My two cents. Carry on.

[Doctor MJ]

It's surprising for me to see Manu ranked this high, tbh. You're still in the territory of legit alpha/MVP-ish players at this point. Manu just about defines situational greatness. Rings aside, he's closer to someone like Terry Porter than AD/Barry/Gilmore/Baylor. Those guys dominated games. My two cents. Carry on.

Hey Laimbeer! So I'll say:

1. Indeed, it is a surprise. Ginobili's rise is clearly going to be one of the big things to analyze after the project is done. Obviously, I'm very involved in that rise so I'm hardly a neutral spectator.

2. I would say that it's important to keep in mind that guys like Pippen & Stockton have always been on these lists higher than spot #39 so this isn't about Ginobili breaking into territory that had only been the realm of guys unanimously agreed to be "alphas".

3. I would push back on situational greatness given that we saw Ginobili lead Argentina to a Gold Medal. The Olympics are not part of the purview of this project of course, but to me "situational greatness" implies that a player might not actually be able to be great outside of a particular situation...but in the case of Ginobili we have other situations to look at.