Manu Ginobili is one of the greatest sixth-men to ever pick up a basketball. A player of his caliber becomes the sixth man if there’s a very convincing person behind his ear explaining why this sacrifice would be for the betterment of the team. That person was Gregg Popovich, who won 4 championships with Ginobili coming off the bench.
Ginobili is arguably one of the greatest second-round picks to ever come out of the NBA draft, and a huge credit for that goes to Popovich and the Spurs for drafting and developing him with patience. However, rookie Manu had some habits that Popovich couldn’t control, as he revealed in a 2017 interview with SB Nation.
“In the beginning, he would do some things that I thought were unnecessary until that point came when he came to me and said, ‘I am Manu. This is what I do.’ I said, ‘OK, you go ahead and try to save one or two of those passes per game and I’m going to shut up one or two times when they happen during the game.’ We came to this compromise and it’s been lovey dovey ever since.” (h/t SB Nation)
Is Manu Ginobili The Greatest Sixth Man Of All Time?
Over the course of his NBA career, Ginobili came off the bench in 708 games out of the 1057 games he played in his career. He was one of the most lethal parts of the San Antonio Spurs lineup, as Ginobili was a part of their ‘big 3’ despite being a bench player.
He won 4 Sixth Man of the Year trophies in his career, the most out of everyone. While people may make an argument for the likes of Jamal Crawford or Lou Williams to take the title of the greatest sixth man, Ginobili did it for a championship-winning squad where he was indelible to the game plan.
His passes may have been too flashy for Pop when he came into the league, but that ability led to Ginobili retiring as the player with the highest win percentage of all players who have played 1000 games or more.
