Has Tony Parker Become the Next Manu Ginobili?

by

Hamstring injury, ankle injury, thigh bruise, achilles tightness. Those are all the things ailing Tony Parker just right now. He’s clearly not 100 percent and yet, in the second half of the Spurs big Game 5 win, he was able to contribute eight points (3-9 shooting), five rebounds and two assists. He hasn’t shot well but is finding other ways to contribute. Game 6 was more of a mixed bag, but he still managed to get in the lane and get the defense to collapse. The fact remains that he and Manu are the only backcourt players with the ability to consistently get in the lane (which is why Patty Mills plays the bulk of his minutes with Manu). We’d all like Parker to be able to hit a jumper at even a modest clip, but more important than hitting jumpers is the fact that he’s staying aggressive and attacking the paint.

Looking big picture, this is the second instance this season where Parker has been hobbled by injury. It’s the second time in three years he’s been dealing with an injury that left him limited in the playoffs. In fact Parker has missed at least 14 games in four straight seasons. Unless you’re a cyborg like Tim Duncan, it’s not totally surprising that injuries happen when you’ve been in the league 10 plus years logging the minutes Parker has. There’s been a tendency to overlook these injuries and the possibility of a decline because he was playing like an All-Star & MVP candidate during that same stretch. This season may have been a revelation of where Parker’s career goes as he enters his next contract with the Spurs. He might just become the Spurs next Manu Ginobili. Parker basically told us this was coming earlier this month with this fantastic quote about ceding part of the offensive responsibility to Kawhi Leonard.

This isn’t to say he’s about to become the Spurs super sixth man if Manu retires, but it’s clear his body can’t take the responsibility of always being the main cog in the Spurs offense. A lighter burden has probably added at least a couple of seasons on to Manu’s career. During the 2010-2011 season, Manu made his second and presumably final trip to the All-Star Game. He also earned a spot on the All-NBA Third team. The following season, his minutes dropped 30 per game down to 23. Shot attempts, scoring average, everything dropped (although as shown below the per 36 minutes numbers did not and have not fallen off by that much).

While this was happening, the Spurs offense became Tony Parker’s machine to lead. It was more subtle when Manu passed the torch because Duncan still had an increased role, Parker is the point guard and Manu was the sixth man, so all the pieces fit. Now we see it happening with Parker and Kawhi and I would argue it’s probably a season ahead of schedule. The way he’s been beat up this season, the Spurs relying on Parker to carry the offense now would be a losing proposition. The Spurs have adapted on the fly and are lucky that Kawhi seems more than ready for the increased role and the fact that Duncan’s been able defy nature this season. Moving forward, Parker will continue to play an important role for the Spurs, but it’s possible, maybe even probably it’s going to be a reduced role ala Manu in 2011-2012-present. He can be like 2010 Steve Nash that was still really good, still the team’s floor general, but also had someone like Goran Dragic backing him up to carry some of that burden.

San Antonio may be the only team capable of making a title run while going through a year of transition, especially a transition that felt like it arrived a little early then we all expected. Parker will still be a critical member of this team moving forward, but like Manu four years ago, it’s clear Parker is headed for a different stage of his career. This is one of many questions the Spurs will enter this summer having to figure out, whether the offseason starts Saturday night or at the end of June.

  • hoopsaf

    Tony’s ‘other ways to contribute’ are either very subtle so that they never show up in the box-score, or are entirely overrated.

    IMO, Tony in decline is a lot less valuable than Manu in decline. It becomes a very flimsy argument to say otherwise — is he still really helping the team while shooting 33%, 0% from 3’s, 59% from FT, 3 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 0.2 steals in the series?

    If anyone else is having those numbers, we would all agree that the guy doesn’t deserve to be on the floor.

    Manu hasn’t played much better either, but he does a little bit more than Tony, even now.

  • DorieStreet

    To answer Trevor’s question: Yes.
    Moving forward after this postseason, it’s time for Tony to take a reduced role on the Spurs’ squad so as to remain a vital, contributing member these last few years of his career (and somewhat justify his salary).
    Some prerequisites would have to take place to make it work well: (1) Parker retire from all basketball competition outside of the NBA; (2) Rehab and recover fully from his numerous injuries;
    (3) Adapting/adjusting to his declining abilities so he is still be efficient and effective in his play- and thus remain the starter with a minutes-per-game limit (following in Duncan’s footsteps). The last requirement would call for significant improvement from Cory Joseph (if he remains on the squad) and Patty Mills to be up to the task of running the team with the increased time on the court in a regular, consistent rotation.

  • Bill Ferguson

    Unfortunately, the Spurs are now down to one star player. With considerable due respect to Timmy, he can’t score 20 + and double double every night in the playoffs (and definitely not in the regular season) . They can only go as far as the other star players, Tony and Kawhi, can take them. With Tony essentially out and maybe gone for good as a star player, Kawhi has a bunch of role players and as much as Tim can muster to help him. That isn’t enough in the Western Conference.

  • Andrew

    I don’t like that we play Patty with Manu. Manu has been negating anything positive Patty does. Play Parker with Mills. That would be nice. Then use Cojo as the back up.

  • TD BestEVER

    Tim can in the playoffs because of the rest, but he isn’t getting the shots. Also we are so deep that we don’t need 2-3 star players.

  • Comrade747

    nice