Manu Ginobli returns to Spurs on reported 2-year, $5 million deal

Manu Ginobili will return to the San Antonio Spurs on a 2-year deal worth $5 million, according to Shams Charania of the Vertical.

At 39 years old, Ginobili’s age is clearly starting to show. He averaged 7.5 points per game last season, the lowest of his career, while shooting under 40 percent from the field. But he still hit 39.2 percent of his three-pointers on more than three attempts per game while dishing out 2.7 assists per game, too. Because Ginobili has been a sixth man in San Antonio, there was never any need to “transition him to the bench,” like most superstars must eventually do. Ginobili still averaged almost 19 minutes in the 69 games he played.

Ginobili and Tony Parker are both still hanging on from San Antonio’s Big Three after Tim Duncan retired last year. For Ginobili, there’s no doubt that he’ll remain with the team for as long as he thinks he can keep playing. We thought last season might be it, and the odds are high that Ginobili would play another year after this one. But maybe he plays forever.

After going scoreless in his first four games this postseason, Ginobili also ended up being effective. Against the Warriors, despite being swept, Ginobili averaged nearly 14 points on 59 percent shooting from the field. Perhaps that as much as anything impacted his decision to return to the league for another season.

Ginobili will likely go down as a Basketball Hall of Famer. He never stopped winning at any level of his career, and he is as famous for his role on the Argentinian National Team (which beat the United States in the 2004 Olympics) as he is for his Spurs career. Even before that, while playing overseas, Ginobili was one of the best there ever was.