Tag: San Antonio Spurs

Manu talks retirement

As if the NBA lockout hasn’t been hard enough on basketball fans, Thursday afternoon brought another bummer to Spurs faithful.

Manu Ginobili talking about his basketball mortality.

, Ginobili says he isn’t necessarily committed to calling it quits once his current contract expires after the 2012-13 season, but he does recognize the reality that time is not on his side.

He will be 36 years old then, a ripe old age for an NBA shooting guard. It isn’t a stretch to assume that could be Ginobili’s final season in silver and black.

Loosed from the rigors of an NBA job, Ginobili would finally be free to pursue full-time his true passion:

Elsewhere in the Argentine interview, Ginobili seems to frown upon the idea that he might return overseas, to play out his final years as a conquering hero, once his NBA contract is up.

“I always thought about retiring at the highest level,” Ginobili said (hat tip to for the translation).

One year older than Ginobili, Tim Duncan has always addressed the retirement issue by vowing to play, vaguely, “until the wheels fall off.” Ginobili would seem to be built in the same mold. He will likely keep playing NBA basketball for as long as someone will pay him to do it.

Still, if the ongoing NBA lockout eventually ends up cancelling games, it will be difficult not to consider the twilight years of Ginobili’s and Duncan’s careers as unfortunate collateral damage.

Parker not locked out of hoops in France

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

It appears Les Bleus have their point guard.

The French Basketball Federation has obtained insurance sufficient to cover the contracts of its NBA players, paving the way for the Spurs’ Tony Parker to play in the Eurobasket tournament in Lithuania later this summer.

The announcement came via a post on the official website for FIBA, the sport’s international governing body.

The question of insurance for international players has been a hot-button issue since the start of the NBA’s lockout July 1.

Typically, the NBA agrees to pay to insure 80 percent of a player’s salary, with foreign federations left to foot the remaining 20 percent. With a work stoppage in effect, however, the NBA has been unwilling to pick up its share of the tab, leaving the often cash-strapped international teams to shoulder the full financial burden.

For the French federation, that meant securing coverage for more than $125 million worth of NBA contracts. Earlier this summer, Parker said he wouldn’t consider playing this summer unless his contract was insured.

That obstacle cleared, the 29-year-old Parker was set to join fellow French NBA players Boris Diaw, Ronny Turiaf and Nicolas Batum for the start of training camp Wednesday in southern France. Eurobasket, an Olympic qualifying tournament, begins Aug. 31.

News of Les Bleus’ success in obtaining insurance came following a Tuesday meeting in New York between NBA commissioner David Stern and FIBA officials, though it is uncertain if the resolution was a direct result of those talks.

“Even before the formalization of the NBA lockout … the French Basketball Federation began working on insurance contracts of employment of selected players, in particular by proposing a pooling of insurance for all the federations concerned,” read a statement posted to FIBA.com. “Thanks to this French initiative, the coverage of the players is finalized.”

As such, Parker becomes the second Spurs player formally insured to play in this summer’s round of Olympic qualifiers.

Brazil announced last week it had secured insurance for its NBA contingent, making Spurs center Tiago Splitter available for the Tournament of Americas, which tips off Aug. 30 in Mar del Plata, Argentina.

Meanwhile, Spurs guard Manu Ginobili and newly drafted point guard Cory Joseph are awaiting a resolution that would allow them to play for Argentina and Canada, respectively, in the same tournament.

In order for the Argentine federation to field its complete roster, which also includes NBA players Luis Scola, Carlos Delfino and Andres Nocioni, it must first obtain coverage for about $75 million worth of contracts.

In an interview on Argentine television earlier this month, Ginobili said he was “optimistic” the insurance issue would be resolved in time for the team to open training camp July 29.

Mark Cuban back in the swingin’ 70s at Indiana University

Mark Cuban always will tell you about the fun he had while attending Indiana University.

Besides playing on the school’s rugby team, the current owner of the Dallas Mavericks apparently was quite the social animal back in those debaucherous days back in Bloomington.

The folks at Deadspin have back at Indiana.

They let him know it was coming and Cuban protected a few of his old friends in the most revealing pictures by blocking out their faces.

But he also has a hilarious commentary about the slideshow.

This picture is one of the more , who comments that he’s glad he’s gotten rid of the ’70s porn mustache you can see him with in most of the pictures.

It’s a revealing look at Cuban in all of his glory.

Just a guess here, but I bet Spurs Nation will like these a lot better than another picture of Cuban holding up the Larry O’Brien Trophy.