SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – It was a bit of irony Saturday night for Manu Ginobili, the ultimate role player going into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as the showcase guy.
When you think of, say, the Class of 2020 so crowded with superstar talent – Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett in the same year – the image of Ginobili as the 13-member Class of 2022’s anchor inductee at Symphony Hall was unexpected.
Which makes sense in a weird way, given how the 6-foot-6 Argentinian guard doesn’t fit the typical Hall of Fame mold.
Ginobili is an outlier on multiple fronts. He made it into the sport’s shrine despite coming off the bench in 67% of his NBA appearances (708 of 1,057, to be exact). Reserves don’t generally get considered for the game’s highest individual honor.
But of course, Ginobili was no ordinary reserve.
His traditional statistics – 13.3 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 3.8 apg – weren’t what most people think of, either, when they conjure the greats of the game. But those numbers were merely a sliver of Ginobili’s value to the San Antonio Spurs.
Then there’s the continuity Ginobili, now 45, strung together with that team. Sixteen seasons, all with the same franchise, the same city, the same fans, the same coach (Gregg Popovich), the same point guard (Tony Parker) and, for 14 of those 16 years, the same power forward (Duncan). The results? Four NBA championships and, for Ginobili, the crown as the winningest player in league history (.721 percentage), a bit better than Duncan or Parker.
In a league in which comings and goings of players, coaches and moving vans whirr like the fruit and bars in an overheated slot machine, that level of constancy might be unchallenged this side of Bill Russell’s Celtics. It’s a longshot we’ll ever see someone stick and succeed in one place for so long, with so many unchanging parts, anytime soon.
“I’m not here because I was special,” Ginobili said near the end of the tidy two-hour show. “I’m here because I was part of two of the most important teams … with the Spurs winning four NBA championships and with my Argentinian national team winning [Olympic] gold in 2004.”
That’s brings up one more quirk in the Ginobili’s Hall worthiness candidacy: Hardcore critics who might have pointed to his NBA stats and role as less than deserving generally conceded that when his play in FIBA and Olympic international competition was considered, it was hard to deny the hyperkinetic sixth man enshrinement.
And yet, Ginobili became the first foreign player voted into the Hall by the North American Committee, which means his NBA resume was enough to open the door.
What the 2022 class might have lacked in marquee power, it made up for in depth and breadth of its players, coaches and contributors.
The NBA-related newcomers included All-Star point guard Tim Hardaway, tempestuous coach George Karl, recently deceased referee Hugh Evans, former Hawks scoring star Lou Hudson and, voted in as contributors, former coaches Del Harris and Larry Costello.
Other Class of 2022 members: NCAA men’s coach Bob Huggins, WNBA alumni Lindsay Whalen and Swin Cash, women’s college coaches Marianne Stanley and Theresa Shank-Grentz, Yugoslav star Radivoj Korac and three African-American pioneer selections with roots back to the early Harlem Globetrotters: Wyatt (Sonny) Boswell, Inman Jackson and Albert (Runt) Pullins.
All of the 2022 enshrinees, even the seven who entered the Hall posthumously, were supported by family, friends and representatives of their basketball journeys.
But the Ginobili contingent was the biggest and loudest, drawn from several continents and four decades, hooting at the…
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