I almost didn't write this after seeing Ben's nice breakdown from last week, but the "Manu Ginobili is underrated" drum is one that I've been banging for awhile now and I couldn't let it slide.

I've spoken before about how much perception can influence "reality" when it comes to how we look at the NBA.  The perception is that the Spurs are Tim Duncan's team with Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker as the sidekicks.  I don't argue much with that designation, outside of the all-important matter of degree.  Because Duncan is a former MVP and Ginobili/Parker are fringe All Stars the perception is that Duncan is almost doing it alone.  On the other hand, several advanced stats (including PER, win shares and +/- stats)  would suggest that Ginobili has been almost as vital as Duncan since about 2004.

The thing is, though, the "advanced stats" aren't accepted as dogma yet.  And for some, the notion that these stats put Ginobili on par with superstar wings like Kobe Bryant are more an indictment of the usefulness of those stats than evidence that Ginobili is really that good.  After all, Ginobili comes off the bench.  He doesn't play nearly as many minutes as the "real" superstars, and he plays a good bit against the opposing bench.  His regular box score stats usually aren't eye-popping, and if he plays a lot he gets hurt anyway.  No way he is on the level of the super-duper stars.

But if you look macroscopically at the last several years, though, the fate of the Spurs seems to be incredibly correlated with Ginobili for him to just be "a good 6th man type".  And it sure looks a lot like his presence and health can determine whether the Spurs are championship contenders or early-round playoff fodder.

From 2005-07 Ginobili was a beast and the Spurs won two titles.  Ginobili very easily could have won the Finals MVP in 2005, in fact. 

In 2008 the Spurs were in the WCF when Ginobili aggravated his injury, and the only game they won is the one in which he was able to perform at a high level through the pain. 

In 2009, with Ginobili out, the Spurs went out in the first round. 

And then there's this season.  Ginobili was toiling along in anonymity, trying to regain his health, when Tony Parker went down.  Suddenly the team once again made him a primary option, and the Spurs are suddenly unbeatable.  In the last five games that Ginobili has played, the Spurs are 5 – 0 with wins over the Cavs, the Lakers, the Magic, the Celtics and the Rockets.  In the only game in that stretch where Ginobili sat, the Spurs lost to the Nets.

The real story will play out in the playoffs, I believe, because the "agreed upon" narrative in the general basketball community is that the Lakers stormed past the Spurs because Duncan aged and wasn't quite good enough to defeat the Kobe-led juggernaut.  But if the Spurs make another run this season, it would be another piece of big evidence to support what the advanced stats have been saying all along…that Ginobili really IS right there with the other superstar wings of this generation, and that it was his absence more than Duncan's age that took the Spurs from contender to also-ran.  And if that happens, I wonder if that would be enough to finally get Ginobili more of his due.