La "espuela" del momento

Ginobili's hard-charging style has made him the NBA's most talked-about rising star and beloved in San Antonio

By Mark Heisler, Times Staff Writer

DETROIT ? Legends really are born in the NBA Finals, brief as these may be.

Four years ago, Emmanuel Ginobili was a 24-year-old Argentine guard playing in Italy. Two months ago, he was a rising young player coming off his first All-Star selection, although this season's 16-point scoring average was his career best.

ADVERTISEMENT Now he's rising to yet another level no one imagined, not San Antonio General Manager R.C. Buford, who found him, or Spur Coach and team President Gregg Popovich, who drafted him, or Ginobili himself.

Ginobili is up to 22.3 points a game in the playoffs, carrying the Spurs when Tim Duncan is hurt, as in the first round when the Denver Nuggets upset them in the opener and Ginobili turned the series back around, scoring 32 points in the pivotal Game 3 in Denver.

Ginobili is at 26.5 points a game in the Finals ? while taking a total of 24 shots in two games. He's already a favorite of insiders who thrill to his high-wire act, such as TNT's Charles Barkley, who calls him "my favorite player." Now comes the fame.

Piston Coach Larry Brown says Ginobili is right there with Miami's Dwyane Wade. Phoenix Coach Mike D'Antoni says Ginobili is "one of the best players on the planet."

Who, me? says Ginobili.

"All of this attention feels very awkward," he said before Game 2. "Of course I am enjoying it. I'm enjoying the whole experience of being in the Finals again with a different role. But I'm not the kind of guy who's going to say how good I am and those kind of things. I'm very low-key."

On the floor, he's as high-key as it gets, leaping, hurtling, finger-rolling, dunking in traffic. In a league that's always holding its breath, waiting for the next white star, he is the rarest kind, one with "street cred."

Larry Bird, who was more skilled than athletic, had to prove himself every day. In 1987, when he was an eight-time All-NBA first-team selection, Detroit's Dennis Rodman said he was overrated because of his race; Piston teammate Isiah Thomas agreed with him before saying he hadn't meant it.

Ginobili wows everyone. Scoop Jackson of teen-oriented Slam magazine was blown away when he saw him in the 2002 world championships in Indianapolis, before Ginobili had arrived in the NBA.

"Maybe it's too early to put this out there like this," Jackson wrote for ESPN.com after Game 1, "but Manu Ginobili quite possibly has just become the most important basketball player in the world, at least until the end of this series."

If Diego Maradona had come from Iowa, it couldn't have been a bigger mystery than Ginobili's arrival from soccer-mad Argentina. Ginobili's father, though, was a basketball coach, two older brothers played for the national team and Manu always knew what he wanted to do. He just didn't know he'd be so good.

It's like Fernando Valenzuela, coming out of the Sonoran desert at 18 with a beautiful flowing delivery as well as the ability to hit and field well enough to win a Gold Glove and a Silver Bat.

There was only one Fernando. There's only one Manu.

No. 1 in Your Heart, No. 57 in the Draft

Then there's the matter of how the Spurs beat the world to his door.

In 1997, Buford, then an assistant coach with the Spurs, went to see an Argentine point guard in a junior tournament but was more impressed by the team's 20-year-old shooting guard.

With David Robinson, the Spurs were always drafting in the high 20s, long after the top prospects were gone. Popovich, who was then the general manager, had decided to go abroad, looking for young players they could stash in Europe.

This wasn't new. The pioneer was Don Nelson, who was doing it in Golden State in the ྌs. Nelson even went to Africa once, hoping to bring back a 7-footer, but was disappointed to find you couldn't just walk down the street and see one.