Nearly 21 years ago, David Stern welcomed a slight, cherubic-faced foreign journalist into his New York office. Adrian Paenza came to express Argentina's keen interest in the NBA. Stern, then the league's neophyte commissioner, pined for more than a domestic audience.
"David said, 'Adrian, I would like to offer you TV rights to the NBA,' " Paenza recounted. "He said, 'I'll give them to you for $2,000.' "
"Hey, we were fighting for coverage," Stern said in a recent telephone interview.
Paenza wrote the check and schlepped back to his homeland with a promise of videos mailed to Canal 9, where he worked as a soccer color analyst. The station manager had no time slot "except for midnight after soccer on Sunday night," he said.
"Nobody even knew who Magic Johnson, Larry Bird or Michael Jordan was," Paenza said.
Seven-year-old Manu Ginobili quickly found out. The boy stayed up late for Paenza's edited highlights and the theatrical Spanish commentary, which accompanied all of Jordan's dunks in celluloid. Soon, just like kids in Kankakee, Ill., and Oakland, Calif., the life-sized poster of the levitating Chicago Bulls' star was affixed to his bedroom wall in Bahia Blanca, a port town 500 miles south of Buenos Aires.
Bahia Blanca is where Ginobili and many of the country's best basketball players were born and grew up to become Olympic gold medalists last summer in Athens. It is where Ginobili first watched his NBA heroes, dreamed his dream, worked his game and hoped the two would one day fuse.
"It's hard to believe when you think back to then," Ginobili said recently. "When I watched the games, the videos, everything Jordan used to do, I could not predict what would happen."
"Can you imagine 20 years ago when we were talking we would have an Argentinian in the NBA?" Paenza said, excitedly. "Everybody said we were crazy."
Ginobili has slithered through the Western Conference playoffs, splitting defenders, contorting his 6-foot-5 frame through spaces no bigger than a kitchen's cat door. He has thrown down malicious dunks on Denver and Seattle through the first two rounds, and Phoenix has been unable to thwart the skill, athleticism and wild improvisation of San Antonio's all-star guard in the first two games of the Western Conference finals.
Beyond his 46 points, 10 rebounds and 9 assists in Games 1 and 2, Ginobili's thrill-seeking way stands out. With less than two minutes left on Tuesday and the Spurs ahead 103-102, he went 94 feet, dribbling swiftly upcourt and driving hard before attempting to lay the ball in with his left hand — his shooting hand.
Double-teamed and running out of room, Ginobili instinctively went behind his back with the basketball, losing the two defenders. He flipped in a reverse layup with his back turned toward the basket, a breathtaking shot that left the Suns crestfallen, in an 0-2 hole.
"He's tough, he's smart, he's quick, he's got it all," Phoenix Coach Mike D'Antoni said after Game 2. "At big moments, he plays big. It takes guts. You've got to be a little crazy, and he's crazy."
Said San Antonio Coach Gregg Popovich, "Manu Ginobili does two or three things every night that surprise me."
Ginobili's ascension to NBA all-star and premier postseason player is merely a window into his country's ascension in the sport. One of his teammates from Argentina's Olympic team — brutish forward Andres Nocioni of the Chicago Bulls — started and played well in the first-round series against the Wizards. Another, Luis Scola, may join Ginobili next season on the Spurs, who hold Scola's contractual rights.
Scola will be forever remembered as the 6-8, lithe forward who cocked and dunked the ball in the face of New Jersey Nets star Richard Jefferson in the final moments of Argentina's upset of the United States in the Olympic semifinals. Afterward, Scola celebrated wildly, cupping his hands around the national insignia on his jersey. It was a surreal scene on the international basketball stage, mostly because Americans had historically dunked on everyone else. Ginobili hugged Scola as tightly as he hugs Tim Duncan now.
If the genesis of that upset began in front of a television two decades ago, it continued with the work and belief of Leon Najnudel, the longtime national team coach. He was the Lou Carnesseca and John Thompson of Argentina basketball, a charismatic, tireless visionary who altered how his nation viewed the sport and paved the way for Ginobili and others.
To improve the quality of the game in his country in the 1980s, Najnudel declared that two Americans would be allowed to play on every professional team in Argentina. Former NBA players Mario Elie and Stacey King were among that group. Najnudel had an eye for young talent, too. He handpicked Nocioni and Scola for the national team. He was essentially the driving force behind Argentina's international success before he died of leukemia five years ago.
Globalization was the next step, and it came in the form of the 1992 Dream Team. The players Ginobili had watched as a youngster had banded to form the greatest collection of American basketball players ever assembled.
"In a world of images, what happened post-Dream Team was that more and more kids — elite athletes from other nations — began bouncing the ball as opposed to kicking it," Stern said. "That's what gave us Yao Ming, Tony Parker, Dirk Nowitzki, Peja Stojakovic, Manu Ginobili, all the great international players."
Too talented for their own backyards, Ginobili and others began playing in the top European leagues, further developing their skills against a growing group of very confident Eastern European players. As he starred at each level, the NBA eventually became less of a dream for Ginobili and more of a logical career destination.
"Some people think, 'Who is this guy? Where did he come from? I never heard of him,' " Ginobili said. "But it took me time to become a good NBA player. I had to play on many other teams before I made it on the Spurs. When you make that kind of journey, it only helps you when you get here."
Today, Ginobili's athletic fame in his homeland is equaled or surpassed only by Diego Maradona, the former soccer star of the national team; Formula One driver Juan-Manuel Fangio; retired tennis legends Gabriela Sabatini and Guillermo Vilas; and some current Argentine soccer stars.
Earlier this season, newspaper headlines in Buenos Aires decried Popovich moving Ginobili to the bench.
"When Popovich takes Manu out of starting lineup, it feels like the whole country was put on the bench," Paenza said. "He has become so popular, more than even some soccer stars. Nobody in sports is more visible than Manu right now, especially since all the soccer players play overseas."
Paenza, 56, who has a doctorate in mathematics and splits his time between Chicago and Buenos Aires, still communicates with Stern. "One of his last e-mails he was lobbying for [Najnudel] for the Hall of Fame," Stern said. "He's a great fan; the game is almost theological for him."
At the All-Star Game in Denver this past February, no one was prouder of Ginobili's selection than Paenza, the man who edited the NBA games for a one-hour highlight show he was unsure anyone would watch.
Ginobili found him across the room and the two men embraced.
"I was very proud and happy for Manu," Paenza said. "The Americans did not quite understand he could make it."
The journalist from Argentina knew 20 years ago, the week after his first show had aired. Paenza came back to the studio to find that all of his NBA background art had been stolen.
"They had taken all the Jordan posters," he said. "Every one of them."
