That play on AB legit changed the course of his career. Might as well have been an ACL tear. Pivotal point in his career where he was trying to take that next step to becoming an all-star (not saying he would've gotten there), but he was never the same after this. And yes, that play was dirty. Certain things you don't do, and trying to take a charge on a running half-court shot at halftime is bad enough, but AB even went to the side of him and he slid there under his feet. It wasn't intentional, but Manu knows better than that, and that's an easy way to hurt someone. Hence, the SERIOUS ankle break. This play still bugs me, AB was my favorite player at the time.
Why do you have to diss Harden to praise Ginobli? LOL,i forgot you really like doing that. And FYI Harden will go down as the better player. i dont know the guy. I'm the not biggest fan of the gif he posted. He's not talking trash though, you used it as a way to trash Harden. Ginobli hasnt been a "threat" to Harden since he destroyed the spurs when he was at OKC.
Manu has been a great player for a long time and the only player that brought excitement to the Spurs team since he got there. "GINOBILI!"
This is the kind of modern NBA take I can't get behind. You might have opened pandora's box comparing this to Pat on Westbrook. A guy being over-aggressive trying to make a play on the ball is a lot more defensible than a flopper trying to run in front of someone at mid-court so that he gets rewarded with a call. This kind of soccer-level 'gamesmanship' was ruining NBA basketball from 2005-2014; fortunately flopping seems to be on the down-swing recently, being replaced by rip-through moves. And while the league has 'tried' to make an effort on reducing rip-throughs, I'll never understand why they enabled flopping to the extent that they did. Heck, Chris Paul was right there with the best of them. Teams were actually winning playoff series off of flopping - not just in key moments, like, entire games full of flopping - taking star players out with phantom fouls and getting rewarded with free throws on dead possessions. People were just launching themselves everywhere with zero contact. The '07 Jazz series comes to mind. Sheesh. And back to Bev-Westbrook... How often do guys get meniscus tears on reach-in fouls? OK, now how often do shooters get injured on under-cuts? [Answers: rarely; frequently] Anyway, hopefully this is the last time I'll rant about Ginobili in my life. I have nothing but respect for Duncan and Popovich. But good riddance to this flopping POS, good person that he might be, I'll respect him a lot more off the basketball court than I did on it.
hey man, on this board you never who's being sarcastic and who's being a homer... lol is vlaurelio, or whatever his name is, just the most sarcastic dude ever then? lol
Let's not use "he wasn't dirty" as a strawman argument to act like the flopping in the mid-2000's NBA was acceptable professional sports. Manu was the kingpin of the whole movement. OP should've done better than setting himself up for all of this debate. There were a lot better videos OP could've used than this. This video is just sad. And what Manu did here was incredibly stupid (he's trained to go for a foul on every play like pavlov's dogs) but not dirty. The flopping however, man... that was really ruining the sport for several years. JJ Barea, Pau Gasol, Andrei Kirilenko, Ginobili, even Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul. It was really out of control. Many playoff series were unwatchable due to flopping and they're even more sad when you go back and re-watch them now. So glad these days are behind us, even if Curry and Harden try to resurrect them sometimes.
I see your point, and I agree and disagree to it. Flopping is something that is 100% on the referees and NBA board on punishing players. They fine a player $5k while they make this money in an hour. Put significant fines & suspension and you will see that go away fast. Since refereeing just got worst through these years, they are the ones to blame (also consider the possibilite of being rigged, of course). And the comparision to Bev and this play wasn´t ment to be an ACTUAL comparison. Not more than the fact that Bev attempt to steal (which I don´t think it was dirty) can be considered more dirty than this play due to its agressiveness like you said yourself.
It's crazy how that single play basically ruined Brooks career. He never was the same when he came back, his quickness was gone which killed his whole game.
