Manu Ginobili, MVP of the only finals series in EuroLeague history, who went on to win an Olympic gold medal with Argentina and four NBA titles with San Antonio, was inducted Saturday into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Ginobili lauds European influence at Hall of Fame induction
Ginobili led Virtus Bologna to the first crown of the modern EuroLeague in 2001 as MVP in a best-of-five final series that went down to the fifth and deciding game. A year later, he was an All-EuroLeague First Team choice as his team finished runner-up to Panathinaikos Athens. Ginobili won his first NBA title the following season and then captured the gold medal at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. He would win two more NBA trophies with San Antonio by 2007 before tacking on his fourth in 2014. Ginobili retired in 2018.
His induction speech was attended by former teammate Tony Parker, the president and owner of LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne, as well Ettore Messina, head coach of that 2001 Virtus Bologna team as well as a Spurs assistant in the final years of Ginobili's career, and now the head coach and president of basketball operations for EA7 Emporio Armani Milan.
Messina "basically taught me what was necessary to get some Ws and win championships," Ginobili said. "Thank you coach. The NBA moved from being an unreachable dream to a realistic goal after playing for you and with the wonderful group of teammates that we had and was successful enough to win that EuroLeague. That Italian experience for me was so valuable. That's where I became not only the player that I ended up becoming in the NBA but also the man."
Also joining Ginobili in the 2022 Hall of Fame class was the late Radivoj Korac, who starred for Yugoslavia during the 1960s as EuroBasket 1961 MVP, 1963 and 1967 World Cup runner-up and 1968 Olympics silver medalist. His 99-point single-game mark and 54.8 scoring average in the 1964-65 season are the highest in either category in EuroLeague history. Korac died in a car crash at age 30 in 1969.