SAN ANTONIO — The home crowd was chanting his name in the closing minutes on Monday night, so Manu Ginobili looked up from his seat on the bench and gave a little wave. The fans responded with a roar, a collective expression of appreciation, nostalgia and grief. Patty Mills, Ginobili’s teammate on the San Antonio Spurs, turned to him.
“I don’t know why these guys are giving you a standing ovation,” Mills recalled telling Ginobili. “He said, ‘Yeah, I’m coming back for another three years.’”
In truth, Ginobili will weigh retirement in the coming weeks after a season that felt, in so many ways, incomplete.