Manu Ginobili isn’t sure when he’ll be ready to follow Tim Duncan into retirement.
Maybe you thought this season would be it for the 39-year-old guard, that his one-year $14 million contract with the San Antonio Spurs would be his last. He would play out the season, his 15th, then call it a career, just like he did with the Argentinian national team over the summer.
Though this is all possible, it’s not necessarily the plan. Ginobili, per Jabari Young of the San Antonio Express-News, doesn’t have a timetable for his retirement:
Though Tim Duncan decided to call it quits over the summer, Ginobili said his future wasn’t influenced by his longtime teammate.
“Those type of decisions that defines your future … and family and all of that usually doesn’t depend on what Tim does,” said Ginobili. “I just felt like I still wanted to do it. That I can help the team. That I enjoy it. That I’m healthy. That was the main key.”
Asked if he has a time frame on how long he wants to continue playing, Ginobili responded: “Not at all.”
I have absolutely zero qualms with this. We just lost Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan and Kobe Bryant in the same summer. Getting to watch Ginobili for not only this season, but another one, or two, would be straight flames.
Ginobili might be nearing 40, but he still moves on offense like he’s 25. He can dart in and out of the paint with extreme quickness, and he’s right about still being able to make a positive impact on the Spurs. He is a cerebral player who’s physical abilities haven’t yet come close to eroding.
It was different for Duncan. He was healthy and, most of the time, effective for someone his age. But the game was moving away from his big, lumbering skill set. He wasn’t able to help the Spurs as much as against smaller, athletic teams, as we saw during last year’s Oklahoma City Thunder series, in addition to each time San Antonio ran into the Golden State Warriors.
If Ginobili stays healthy, you can easily envision him being an offensive asset beyond this season, which, in turn, means you can just as easily see him signing another contract at year’s end, even if it’s not with the Spurs.
