A Look Inside the Mind of Gregg Popovich and Ginobili's Broken Hand

Gregg Popovich's face, pockmarked and scowling, looks like it has seen things that would keep most men up at night, stirring in their bed sheets, pacing over their floorboards, wondering about what it would be like to be inside of a refrigerator, when the door shuts, and the light goes out, and everything is cold.


The coach has always frowned upon men who get up for midnight snacks, who are afraid of the sounds their stomachs make. He has always been a realist, never a dreamer, so when he hears the tic toc crocodile tic of Tim Duncan's knees going up and down the court, he's dead serious as he ponders the impact on his basketball team of replacing Manu Ginobili's broken hand with a metal hook: would such a procedure place his swashbuckling closer back on the court faster than waiting for the bone to heal or are such imaginings simply a wasted exercise in childhood escapism? And what would happen when Manu dribbles the ball? Would it deflate? Would other players simply get out of his way as he literally slashed his way to the basket? Is it fair to ask a man to give up pieces of his body when the championship is already out of reach?

Tic. Toc. Tic. Toc. Tic. Toc. The heart beats faster in a shortened season.