This Saturday, Manu Ginóbili will formally enter the NBA Hall of Fame. The Bahiense will be received by one of his great former colleagues and friends, Tim Duncanwith which he won four rings at the San Antonio Spurs. it will be there first Argentine receive this recognition and the third Latin American playerthe other two were Brazilians Oscar Schmidt and Ubiratan Pereira.

The story of the former escort is particular. Manu won the arm wrestling match against fate. Because based on effort and sacrifice, the younger brother of the Ginóbili dynasty he managed to be that for which he was not predestined.

Thus, his name will be engraved in the prestigious Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, along with the great legends of basketball. But to have a place among the best, the Argentine had to overcome many obstacles.. He was first to play 16 seasons in a row in the best league in the world.

Manu has always dreamed of dedicating himself to this sport. The same that his father and his brothers played. Ever since the ball began to bite like Bahiense del Norte, the desire to improve was the order of the day. And also the comparison.

From the NBA he had only pasted a few posters of his favorite players in the room. Thinking of playing there was impossible or, at least, far away.

In the book “Manuel, the hero by the journalist Diego Morini, Oscar Egg Sánchez explains that at the age of five he was already training to dodge chairs in the kitchen of his home with special glasses that did not allow him to look at the ball and, in addition, he used gloves that forced him to use the tips of his fingers to throw. .

The desire to improve led him to train at home and at the club, outside of training hours. The obsession then began to opt for another side. And he began to fight against nature.

Ginobili wanted to become bigger than his body. He began measuring his height systematically by drawing lines on a kitchen wall and monitoring how many inches he had grown. I took nothing for granted. Every detail was part of the obsession with being a better basketball player.

The first fall of Manu

One of his first disappointments was that he was excluded from the Bahian national team to compete in the provincial cadet championship (a category known today as U17). The young Manu was 15 years old and lived basketball with passion. While his two older brothers, Leandro and Sebastián, were over six feet tall and taking their first steps in the National League, he was skinny and shorter than his teammates.

Guillermo López and Néstor Ortíz informed him that he would not be on campus due to his physique and he accumulated his great disappointment. At the time it was 1.76 meters tall and weighed just over 50 kilos..

He didn’t win titles, he was thinner and shorter than the others. And finally, he had an unexpected competition. Giovanni Ignazio Sanchez he joined the Bahiense del Norte at the age of twelve and was a teammate of the Manu. “Pepe was already different. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ten-year-old boy bounce the ball like him. We’ve had millions of fights, I’ve never let them go, “Ginóbili confessed to El Gráfico magazine.

In dialogue with ClarioneLeo Gutiérrez, former striker of the Argentine national team and one of the founding members of the Golden Generation, recognizes one of the skills that has distinguished the player from Bahia throughout his career: “The key thing for Manu to take off was his mentality, perseverance and the desire to improve himself day after day.“.

The subject of height was always on his mind. Hitting the growth spurt was essential to success in basketball. And Bahiense went to great lengths to do it, from hanging on railings to jumping around every corner to get a little higher. He turned to a pediatrician, Carlos Fernández Campaña, who performed it a height projection study. The result was about 1.85 meters and he didn’t like it at all.

“His path at the beginning was hard, it was not easy nor all rosy“, acknowledged Gutiérrez, record holder of the National League and mentor of Facu Campazzo. And he added:” When his time came he had the physical explosion he had and the height necessary to become a player of good stature to play at level international “.

The descent with the Bahiense

At the age of 16, he experienced another major disappointment. He had made his First Division debut with Bahiense del Norte and after a season in which the team did badly, he had to face promotion to avoid relegation to the local second division. The rival was the Ingeniero White Commercial Port.

They ended up losing the series 2-1 to a team that showed experience and veteran. “For me it was a shame. He had never won a title, nothing, in any of the categories. Most of the kids had been champions of something. I never. And above, I was going downhill while my brothers were already playing in the National League, “said Manu.

“I think he was frustrated at first, but time has put him where it has to put him with a lot of sacrifice, training, a winning mentality and the desire to grow have led him to become the best Argentine basketball player,” reflected the current coach. of the Olympic Cyclist Club.

after a while Egg Sánchez brought Ginóbili to Club Andino de La Rioja to take his first steps in the top category of Argentine basketball. He made his National League debut against Peñarol de Mar del Plata September 29, 199518 years old, and a reckless phrase from the TV commentator summed up the obvious physical difference: “I think … I don’t know if Ginóbili is for the League“.

The intervention, of course, has been denied over time. That night Manu scored 9 points (3 triples out of 7 attempts) in just 13 minutes and was later named the best rookie in the National League that season. The following year he returned to his hometown to play two seasons at Estudiantes de Bahía Blanca.

“With Manu we trained for the first time for the U22 World Cup and he seemed to be a great basketball player. He had the talent to be a great player,” recalls Gutiérrez.

Cordovan, who won the gold medal in Athens 2004, the bronze medal in Beijing 2008 and the silver medal in Indianapolis 2002, knows that “no one imagined the extent of the explosion that Manu would have had”.

“Later he became the star he was in Europe, in the NBA and the great reference of the Argentine national team. Obviously he had his talent and his things. But for a long time in the youth ones he came from behind. There was Lucas Vittoriano, the Bull Palladino, Pepper Sánchez, who played a bit before him, “he says.

“He was improving day by day and becoming what he was: the best player of all time“, concludes Gutiérrez, who in the Argentine national team he played 133 games and scored 958 points.

That said, Manu made the leap to Italy and then to the NBA where he played 16 seasons with the San Antonio shirt and won four rings. He was part of two All Star Games and was named the best sixth man in the NBA. The Spurs have decided to withdraw the number 20 jersey in honor of his career. What was missing to crown his story will be given this Saturday: induction into the NBA Hall of Fame.