It simply doesn’t have to be journey’s end
You can walk away, and no one will blame you.
You can let Monday night be the final time the world ever got to experience the joy of watching Manu Ginobili play basketball, and we will mourn, yes, but we also will be grateful for all that came before.
Just know that you don’t have to do this, Manu. Just because they chanted your name from the rafters at the AT&T Center late in the Spurs’ season-ending 129-115 loss to Golden State, and just because you raised your left hand walking into the tunnel the same way Tim Duncan raised his right one a year ago, that doesn’t mean you need to keep following him.
In case you didn’t notice, Timmy seemed to miss you guys after he was gone a few months.
Like you said late Monday, you now have “two wonderful, happy options.” You either can come back for another year in the game you love, the game you helped turn into a worldwide phenomenon, the game you played with as much spirit and guts and reckless abandon as anyone ever had, or you can spend more time with your wife and kids.
You said you look forward to traveling more, to experiencing more new things. But you’ve enjoyed stumbling into those kinds of discoveries on the Spurs’ road trips, so why not one more year?
Did you know that next winter, the Minneapolis Institute of Art is hosting an exhibition featuring contemporary Japanese lacquer sculpture? That a long-awaited $305 million science museum just opened in Miami? We bet Gregg Popovich will let you out of a couple of shootarounds to check out that stuff.
Pop knows you might not be back, Manu. He did his best to honor you Monday, giving you your first playoff start since 2013. He said you “deserved to have that night of respect.”
You also proved you’re capable of a few more. You scored 15 points and dished out seven assists, and you looked like you almost always did. Trailing by 20 points in the third quarter, you guarded Steph Curry and Kevin Durant on back-to-back possessions and coaxed them both into turnovers.
In the fourth quarter, you tried to will your team back, and almost did. You scored on three drives in a row, finishing twice with your left and once with your right, and then you swished your last shot, a three-pointer from the wing.
Couldn’t you keep doing this forever?
Yes, you’re going to be 40 next year. But you said it yourself, all season long. You didn’t stay this long because you felt the urge to win another championship, or because you need to score 20 points every night.
You stayed because you enjoy the locker room, the competition, and being “useful.” You’re still useful, all right.
You said how you feel is the most important factor, but like you pointed out, the past three years have been good. You’ve been healthy, except for what you called “minor incidents.”
As an aside, you still refer to an injury that required testicular surgery as a “minor incident.”
Selfishly, those of us who cover basketball want you back, not because we are fans, but because we like writing about feats we’ve never seen before, and you’ve had a knack for providing those, whether you were firing half-court passes through opponents’ legs or swatting flying rodents out of the air.
But more than that, we enjoy talking to grown men with life perspective, with genuine curiosity about topics other than pick-and-roll defense, and with the consistent willingness to extend us the courtesy we don’t always deserve. In three languages, no less. You said you’ll remember every minute of this, not only the NBA championships and the Olympic gold medal, but also the low moments, which you said you will treasure just as much.
“The whole trip is incredible,” you said.
No one will argue with that, Manu, but just remember:
It doesn’t have to be over.