Remember all that “Manu Ginobili was considering signing with the Philadelphia 76ers if the San Antonio Spurs didn’t up their offer” stuff that was floating around last week?
Surely it was a joke. Ginobili wouldn’t ever leave the Spurs. Especially for the Sixers. He would sooner retire. He probably just used Philly for leverage, even though he had no plans to actually play for them if push came to shove.
Right?
Wrong.
As Ginobili told The Vertical’s Michael Lee:
“It was not my main option. I never wanted to leave San Antonio,” Ginobili told The Vertical. “But I had to listen to all the options that are there.”
In a wild free-agency period that witnessed Dwyane Wade ending a 13-year marriage with the Miami Heat to go to his hometown Chicago Bulls and both Kevin Durant and Al Horford leaving after nine seasons with their respective franchises, none would’ve been more startling than Ginobili leaving the 67-win Spurs for the 10-win 76ers. But Philadelphia came to the table with two assets that piqued Ginobili’s interest – a coach in Brett Brown, who had a rapport with Ginobili after working closely with him for 11 seasons in San Antonio; and a two-year contract offer that would’ve guaranteed in the first season (between $16 million and $17 million) more than five times what the Spurs initially offered for one year ($3 million).
“The fact that Philadelphia had a great coach and a person I appreciate so much as Brett Brown, made it more appealing in the case the Spurs didn’t happen,” Ginobili told The Vertical. “But the Spurs happened and they always had the priority.”
This summer is weird, y’all. There was that much money floating around out there—enough to make any player with an undefined market value consider any explosive offer that came his way, regardless of who it came from or how much loyalty he had to his incumbent digs. (Dwyane Wade anyone?)
For Ginobili specifically, making more money had to be especially intriguing. His $14 million salary is the second highest of his career. He was never paid like a max player the way Tim Duncan had been. So, in hindsight, signing with the Sixers was definitely a legitimate possibility.
And yet, Ginobili isn’t kidding about his allegiance to the San Antonio Spurs. The Sixers were offering him between $2 and $3 million more for next season, plus some guaranteed money in 2017-18. He still sacrificed to stay with the Spurs.
On a slightly related note: Let’s all hope Ginobili is still having fun, and is still healthy, this time next year. I don’t think I can handle another one of the Spurs’ original Big Three retiring within one year of Duncan’s swan song. Ginobili should go another two years at least to keep me—er, I mean, us—at ease.
