Ettore Messina shared his thoughts on the four-time NBA champion and league legend, Manu Ginobili.
The Italian coach, who is currently the head coach of EuroLeague club Armani Milano, praised Ginobili for his ability to ‘combine instinct with reasoning’.
“When we signed him (in Kinder Bologna), he was coming from a smaller club. When he became our go-to guy, our main guy, it was a learning experience.
Sometimes he was doing crazy things on the court and we were like ‘what the hell is he doing’ and then he was scoring or making an assist. Sometimes, he was throwing the ball at the stands. It was a learning experience.
He deserves credit. The greatest thing about Manu was his ability to combine instinct with reasoning. Once the game was starting, he was capable of stopping thinking and follow his great instincts for basketball.
In meetings, timeouts etc he was focused and was processing everything. He also had so many situations where he hit the wall and bounced back quickly. That made him the great player he was,” Messina said during his recent appearance in the ”World of Basketball” podcast with Fran Fraschilla on SiriusXM.
Messina and Ginobili worked together in both Virtus (then Kinder) Bologna and the San Antonio Spurs.
