Tag: Ginobili

Argentina insures Ginobili’s contract

The celebrations keep on coming for Manu Ginobili.

After turning 34 on Thursday, the Spurs guard reveled Friday in the news that he would be able to represent his native Argentina in the FIBA Americas Olympic qualifying tournament in his homeland next month.

The Argentine Basketball Federation negotiated a deal to insure the contracts of the four NBA players on the nation’s national team. The news turned out to be one of the better birthday gifts ever received by the Spurs All-Star guard.

Ginobili and Luis Scola (Houston Rockets), Carlos Delfino (Milwaukee Bucks) and Andres Nocioni (Philadelphia 76ers) had traveled to Buenos Aires for the first day of the Argentine team’s training camp, but were uncertain when they’d be able to take the court. One report indicated all four players remained on the sidelines during the opening session. The tournament will be held Aug. 28-Sept. 11 in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

A Friday morning announcement by Argentine Basketball Federation president German Vaccaro, on the FIBA Americas official website, ended the suspense. An Argentine insurance company had agreed to become a sponsor of the national team and provide the insurance.

The insurance issue was complicated by the NBA’s lockout of its players following expiration of its collective bargaining agreement with the players’ union. Insurance typically provided by NBA teams for its players participating in FIBA-sanctioned competitions no longer was available, putting a much greater financial burden on the national federations.

Vaccaro spent most of July searching for an insurance solution for the four NBA players who make up the core of Argentina’s team. He said arrangements with Sancor, the insurance company sponsoring the federation, will be finalized next week.

“At this moment, I am just very happy to have managed this,” he told FIBAAmericas.com. “It has been a very exhausting process of endless meetings, moments of uncertainty and some disappointments. But, as I said at the outset, we will send the best team possible to Mar del Plata.”

Ginobili reacted to the news by posting this on Twitter, albeit in a truncated version: “Today Argentina national team’s training camp starts in Buenos Aires. Very happy to play with El Chapu (Nocioni), Scola, (Fabricio) Oberto, Delfino and the whole team again.”

Oberto, who played four seasons for the Spurs and was the starting center on the team that won the 2007 NBA championship, had retired from basketball because of a cardiac arrhythmia problem. He was medically cleared to return to the Argentine team on July 1.

Spurs center Tiago Splitter is on the roster of the Brazilian team that will play in the tournament, but there has been no announcement yet about insuring his NBA contract, or those of other NBA players on the Brazilian roster.

The French national team already has secured insurance for its NBA players, including Spurs starting point guard Tony Parker.

Spurs’ Splitter expects crazy summer

The player Spurs coach Gregg Popovich calls a linchpin of the team’s future doesn’t pretend to know what the immediate future holds.

Center Tiago Splitter has been hard at work at the Spurs’ practice court the past three weeks, beginning the overhaul of a shot that needs serious tweaking. But he wonders whether the coming months will mean finding a new shooting coach and a gym in which to work.

He had plans to play in the FIBA Americas tournament in Argentina in September, but they’re on hold. Splitter hoped to help his national team, Brazil, qualify for the 2012 Olympic basketball tournament in London.

Locked away in a corner of his mind is the thought he prefers to ignore, but can’t entirely rule out: a return next season to the team he led to the 2010 Spanish ACB League title.

The labor impasse between the NBA and the players union is the reason for the uncertainty. The league has threatened a lockout once the current collective bargaining agreement expires July 1. Nobody knows how long a work stoppage might last. The only lockout in league history wiped out the first two-and-a-half months of the 1998-99 season.

Were a lockout to threaten the bulk of the 2011-12 season, Splitter knows there is a ticket back to the Europe he likely can book.

“I think everybody is thinking about playing (in Europe),” he said. “For me, it’s a little bit easier, because I played over there and I have my passport. Still, it’s going to be tough and right now I’m trying to not think about it. Right now, I’m thinking we will end the season and have no problems.

“Of course, if they are still having the same problems and nothing is happening, who knows? I’ll play three, four months over there.”

Splitter understands the path back to Europe during a lockout won’t be without complication. An end to the lockout would demand immediate return to NBA teams if a season were pending. European teams, he said, won’t be eager to sign players who may not be with them for long.

“Nobody is going to sign you on one of the big teams knowing you can leave tomorrow,” he said.

For now, Splitter’s summer itinerary includes a mid-July return to Brazil to join the national team in training for the FIBA Americas tournament. Even that plan must await the results of CBA talks.

“This is one of the crazy summers I’m going to have,” said Splitter, the 26-year-old whose rookie season was a series of injury-plagued stops and starts. “We don’t know what it’s going to be. It is hard to plan something because it all depends on what is going to happen with the lockout. You can be on vacation until December or January. Nobody knows.”

Though he has committed to play for Brazil, Splitter won’t play unless his contract with the Spurs can be insured.

“I told (Brazilian team officials) that of course there is a problem,” Splitter said. “Most important is the insurance. If the NBA is in lockout, I don’t have insurance to play with them. They have to figure out how to deal (with) that. If not, I’m not playing.”

Under the current CBA, teams can’t prohibit players from competing in FIBA events. However, NBA teams must be indemnified against injury incurred in international competition. The cost of insuring contracts worth millions is significant.

“We start in July, our camp with national team,” Splitter said. “I will be (in Brazil), waiting (for) what they can find. There are a lot of international players with the same issue. I don’t know who is going to take care of (insurance): FIBA or companies or even the federation. So everybody is waiting.

“It is going to be expensive, and it is going to cost more for guys with big contracts, so it is really going to cost a lot for Tony (Parker) and Manu (Ginobili) because they must insure the whole contract.”

Parker, who recently committed to play for France in this summer’s EuroBasket tournament, is under contract to the Spurs through 2014-15, a total of $50 million.

Ginobili, the leader of the Argentine team, has two years remaining on his Spurs deal for a total of $27.1 million.

Splitter is under contract for two more years worth a total of $7.616 million.