Courtesy - Reuters

OPINION - Manu Ginobili will officially enter the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts in a couple of hours.

I wanted to talk about why the Argentine guard from Bahia Blanca is my all-time favorite athlete.

I’ve written about why I loved Ginobili as a player. He was reckless, and I loved it. He looked like me and went face to face with the Kobes and Lebrons.

However, tonight, I want to talk about Manu the person, and why I love that person even more than the athlete who once swatted a bat out of mid-air and sacrificed a testicle going for a loose ball.

Courtesy: NBA Youtube

There are people in your life that you meet or get to know from afar who seem to know everything. My dad refers to this kind of person as those of the renaissance. I think of myself as a jack of all trades but a master of none.

However, these people whether it was Mr. Sustek, my high school science teacher, or someone like Manu, are jack of all trades, Master of seemingly all of them.

That is Manu.

In the past year, the Spurs organization hired him as an advisor both on and off the court. In recent weeks, Manu has seemingly acted like a teacher or field trip dad when he’s taken young Spurs players on field trips to places like the San Antonio Food Bank or other places to learn about the city as a whole. Those places include the Tower of Americas or the Pearl to learn about areas of San Antonio that they may not live in but for who they represent as players of the whole of San Antonio and South Texas.

Courtesy: @spurs/@safoodbank on Instagram

That checks with what he did as a player and leader on the team. According to ESPN’s Zach Lowe, Manu had a strict “no room service” on the road. He would research the best restaurants in Sacramento or Phoenix and invite his teammates. He had a special bond with Tiago Splitter from Brazil, Boris Diaw from France, and Patty Mills from Australia, and those four would have a different subject to talk about every night.

Manu is intensely curious. He was growing up. He was playing for his country of Argentina of which he beat Team USA in Athens in 2004.

He was playing for teams in Italy.

Courtesy: Kinder Bologna YouTube

And he was playing for the small market Spurs.

He still is, of course. That is why I love Manu Ginobi-lee.

Courtesy: Spurs Youtube

NBA Hall of Fame/Democratic Politics Trivia:

Manu Ginobili is one of only two players to win Olympic Gold, Euroleague, and an NBA Championship. The other?

Former 3-term Democratic Senator from the State of New Jersey: Bill Bradley.