Surgery for Manu After Beijing Aggravation

Manu Ginobili hobbled through the Spurs' embarrassing five-game loss to the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, dashing San Antonio's dreams of repeat O'Briens. And despite the wishes of an S.A. front office which would have liked to see Manu spend the summer recuperating, Ginobili got himself in shape to help Argentina defend its gold medal in Beijing. That didn't end well: Manu re-aggravated his injured ankle in the first half of Argentina's semifinal match against the United States. Argentina went on to earn bronze without Ginobili.

And now, it's gotten worse: Ginobili tells La Nacion he will need to have surgery to repair a damaged ligament, and he may miss the start of the NBA season.

I don't need to tell you how important Manu is to the Spurs. Really, he's more vital than ever. Houston stole away Brent Barry, leaving Tim Duncan and Tony Parker as the only Spurs who can score reliably. Duncan is getting up there in age, and his scoring output and efficiency sunk a bit last season. Parker's still lovely, but he's nowhere near the scorer Manu has been. Is it really up to Michael Finley to pump in threes and Fabricio Oberto to scoop up easy baskets? Are we going to be subjected to many Kurt Thomas baseline "jumpers" (more like flat-footed tosses)?

The Spurs' attempt at re-levitating to the NBA throne suffered a major blow with this one, unless Manu bounces back quickly and see no ill effects beyond his rehab time period.