Every hero has an origin.

In his native Argentina, Manu Ginobili’s is recited often, like a familiar folktale. It belongs to the country as much as the man.

“I’ve played basketball since I learned how to walk,” Ginobili said. “When I was born, my father was president of Bahiense del Norte, a basketball team in (his hometown of) Bahia Blanca. And I spent all my time there. I have pictures dribbling the ball at 2, 3 years old. In the gym or in my home kitchen. I didn’t stop. I really didn’t stop.

“I’m a lover of this sport, a great fan. And I still enjoy it a lot despite all the years.”

The years have been kind to Ginobili, who turned 39 in July. He has spent more than three decades playing organized basketball, working his way from rec leagues in Buenos Aires to pro leagues in Italy before reaching the NBA in 2002.

He ushered in his country’s “La Generacion de Oro” — the “Golden Generation” — winning Olympic gold in 2004. He has helped the Spurs capture four NBA titles, returned victorious to Bahia Blanca, glistening Larry O’Brien Trophy clutched to his chest.

In a soccer-crazed country where figures such as Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi are treated like divine beings, Ginobili became immortal.

“When you think of Ginobili in Argentina, you think of a god, somebody who is above everybody, that is maybe the best athlete in the country next to Maradona and Messi,” said Patricio Garino, a guard on the Spurs’ Development League affiliate in Austin who played with Ginobili in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

But every hero — even a “god” — has an end, too. Those so rarely feel fitting.

In 2016 alone we have witnessed future Hall of Famers depart disgraced and discarded (Alex Rodriguez), unrepentant and unsuccessful (Kobe Bryant), suddenly and silently (Tim Duncan).

Peyton Manning is the rare star to end his tale in triumph, a Super Bowl champion in his final game, his battered 39-year-old body lifted by the Denver Broncos’ great defense.

Ginobili, like Duncan before him, has kept his future intentions shrouded.

“I’ve said before, I play every season as if it’s the last one,” Ginobili said. “Then if I feel good enough, I will consider it. I don’t see any reason I should make a decision 10 months ahead.”

Since joining the Spurs, Ginobili has appeared in more than 1,130 games, playing in excess of 30,000 minutes across the regular season and playoffs. Add to that hundreds more contests in Italy and Argentina and dozens more with the national team.

What does he have left to give? How can he continue to go out and compete against the world’s greatest athletes, some of them nearly two decades his junior? What is it really like at the end?

Figuring out the formula

Over his first eight seasons, Ginobili averaged 28.1 minutes per contest. Over his last six, he is playing 22.1, including a career-low 19.6 through the first quarter of this year.

The formula is simple — advancing age plus waning minutes equals deteriorating numbers.

This season, Ginobili’s scoring average is down nearly 10 full points since his last All-Star campaign in 2010-11, while the remainder of his numbers have dropped to depths not seen since his rookie season.

In some ways, that is all part of the plan.

“Limiting minutes improves the rate of recovery, which is a really big part of what every team is focusing on,” said Dr. Paul Saenz, now in his 19th season as the Spurs’ team physician.

“The rigors of the NBA schedule are brutal. I think that’s where coaches have wised up. You see that Dirk (Nowitzki) isn’t playing in many back-to-backs, and we’ve been doing that with Tim Duncan and Manu for years now.”

Coach Gregg Popovich mandated rest for Ginobili three times in the Spurs’ first 20 games. Twice he sat out the second part of a back-to-back set.

In his first game back from the inactive list, Ginobili has averaged 24.3 minutes, 10 points, 4.3 rebounds, four assists and 2.3 steals, well above his season norms of 19.6, 8.0, 2.8, 2.6 and 1.1, respectively.

That formula, which has produced so much success, is simple, too.

“There’s a cumulative effect of workload,” Saenz said. “In every arena in the NBA, there are dozens of sky-view cameras, so you’re able to watch a player and get a workload value based on the sky view. It tells you how many miles they run, how fast they run, and you can look at that around the league.”

“Who is going to be fresher, a guy that over the course of one week ran 18 miles, or a guy who ran 12 miles? Obviously, different players have different levels of conditioning, and some can push their bodies to extraordinary levels, but the simple answer comes down to coaches wanting to limit exposure of risk, particularly when it comes to older players.”

The dawning of a progressive, health-oriented age in the NBA has led to prolonged careers for the league’s graybeards.

Six active players have seen their 38th birthday pass: Ginobili, Nowitzki, Paul Pierce, Jason Terry, Chris Anderson and 39-year-old Vince Carter, the league’s elder statesman.

Their roles vary, but coalesce in one regard: they are shells.

Nowitzki has sat all out but five games with an Achilles injury. When he returns, he will re-enter the starting lineup of a team that has lost nearly 80 percent of its games.

Pierce has played sparingly off the bench for the Clippers, one of the West’s top contenders.

Carter is playing the most, more than 26 minutes a night for Memphis. He is averaging just 9.3 points on 39 percent shooting, a considerable dip from his career averages of 18.7 and 43.8, respectively.

Still, they are NBA players, a job pursued by thousands of vigorous 20-somethings around the world.

To stay ahead of the their junior competition, they have had to make changes.

Ginobili has adjusted his training routine to fit his age bracket, focusing specifically on day-after recovery.

“The day after (a game)? I’m doing more,” he said. “Right after a game, not so much. But the day after a game, I kind of have a … a different stretching routine, a set of treatments. Nothing particularly new for this year, but in the last three or four years I changed.”

He has also embraced deep-tissue massages, which aid in releasing chronic muscle tension. It is the most hard-core “spa” day imaginable.

“We used to go to the same person at one time and it was hilarious because other guys didn’t care for this lady that we were seeing at the time,” said ESPN NBA analyst Bruce Bowen, who played alongside Ginobili from 2001 to 2009. “It was not a spa day. If you went in there without the right mindset, you were going to start crying on that table. Deep meant deep. It was tough. But because he understands how important deep-tissue massages are, he was OK with that. He understands that allows him to be the best he can be, feel better and recover quicker.”

Training regimens and recovery procedures have become more scientific. New tools, like the ubiquitous cameras to which Saenz alluded, allow teams to monitor and measure athletes in ways that seem sci-fi to players from past generations. Even nutrition has undergone a drastic change.

“When I first got to the NBA, taking care of your health meant not eating Twinkies before a game,” Mavericks owner Mark Cuban recently told the Associated Press. “Guys would smoke cigarettes, they’d drink, there would be beer — people sometimes would have a beer at halftime. There literally were bars in locker rooms. Things have changed.

“The things that we let players do 15 years ago that created inflammation and created orthopedic issues in their bodies, we know not to do as much anymore.”

Ginobili is a partial adherent of the Paleolithic diet.

In a sense, it is the most retro form of eating. Followers are allowed to consume only foods presumed to be available to our Paleolithic ancestors.

“I don’t follow it to the letter,” Ginobili said. “But I take care of myself, especially in the use of sugars. It’s the most I’ve changed. No sodas, ice cream just once in a while. I don’t eat cookies and all those things.

“As regards (to) starchy foods, very few. Before the NBA, I played four years in Italy and every day I’d eat pasta. Now I don’t. I don’t eat it anymore. Some bread here and there. And I don’t eat dairy products. So I take care in some things. I don’t know if I do the full Paleolithic diet. But some concepts here and there, avoid certain things.”

But replacing pasta with protein shakes and sitting out back-to-backs are not supernatural panaceas. These modifications cannot restore athletic ability lost to time.

Ginobili and his grizzled contemporaries have had to learn how to be old, too.

‘Old man’ game

The “old man” is a staple of nearly every playground, every YMCA, every church league around the nation. He runs with the young bucks, getting by with guile and hustle and just enough grit.

For players like Ginobili, who once bounded around the court effortlessly, accepting physical limitations is Step 1. Overcoming them is Step 2.

“As I got older, the speed limit started coming into effect. Instead of going 55, I could only go 45,” said Bucks coach Jason Kidd, a 10-time All-Star who retired in 2013 after 19 seasons. “But, you know, when things started to go a little bit slower, you got to see things a lot better. For me, things were a lot clearer. As you get older, that’s the best time to get better at the game. You can always learn. You can always do something different. For me, it was shooting the ball. If I wanted to play for a while, I needed to make an outside shot.”

Like Kidd, Ginobili has learned to adjust to a limited speedometer. Mercifully, he hasn’t blown a tire yet.

“The speed is disappearing, slowly, the little I had,” he said. “And that’s tough to recover (from). But health-wise I’m doing great. It’s very tough to play constantly through pain and discomfort, but I don’t have any of that. I’m thankful for that.”

Even Michael Jordan, who once made the world believe a man can fly, had to discover new ways to remain relevant in his twilight years.

“When you’re young, you’re reckless,” a 39-year-old Jordan said in 2002 while playing out his final season with the hapless Washington Wizards. “You put so much energy on the floor, sooner or later you’re going to find it. When you get older, you have to get smarter in how you’re doing it. You’re conserving energy.”

Energy conservation means the wild stallion moments of Ginobili’s youth are less abundant, though not extinct. There are flashes.

With seconds remaining in the first half of the Spurs’ narrow home win over Washington, Ginobili heaved his body in front of Wizards guard John Wall, intercepting a pass and splashing a 33-foot 3-pointer at the buzzer.

Later, he leaped between two Wizards defenders near the half-court line, snagging an errant pass like a center fielder and tossing it to Kawhi Leonard before officials could call a back-court violation.

As Ginobili crashed to the floor, the ball snaked to LaMarcus Aldridge, who hit a baseline jumper. The Spurs won by a single shot.

“I tried to let it go before I landed. My hang time is no more than one-tenth of a second,” Ginobili said with a laugh. “So I tried to do it as quick as possible with the means I have.”

He finished that night with 13 points and a season-high seven assists. Just two games before, he had missed all six of his shots en route to three points.

Such is life as an NBA old-timer.

Shifting priorities

Ginobili’s appetite for success remains, but time has a way of putting life in perspective.

Years ago, he might have dwelled on that three-point, 0-for-6 outing. These days, not so much.

“I decided the last few years not to let a win or a loss affect my everyday life, my family’s life, and all that,” he said. “So I’m way more relaxed. I decided to come back because I feel I still enjoy it. I can still help the team. That’s it.”

Age weakens the body, broadens the mind. Athletes especially seem to seek new outlets as they near their career’s final page.

That psychological shift is the reason Swin Cash retired from the WNBA in September after 15 seasons.

“I think things were just aligning for me,” said Cash, honored as one of the league’s 20 most influential players last summer. “I was kind of going through a life change where I had just recently gotten married. I hadn’t gone overseas to play for a few years and I had been working a lot in the offseason, with broadcasting and the nonprofit work that I do.”

Cash, like Ginobili, had checked off nearly everything imaginable across her career — three WNBA titles, two Olympic gold medals, four All-Star Game appearances and a pair of All-Star Game MVP trophies.

In recent years, Cash has been a guest analyst for CBS Sports Network, ESPN and NBA TV, and last season joined MSG Networks as a Knicks studio analyst. She was presented with a Freedom Award in September, given by the National Civil Rights Museum to outstanding individuals for their significant contributions to civil and human rights.

So busy off the court, Cash had to sit and consider her position with the New York Liberty.

“I always wanted to be able to put everything into the game of basketball,” she said. “If you get to a point where you feel like you can’t have that complete focus to give it your all in the offseason, and the time where you need to be able to work and get better, then you have to make a decision.

“Going into the 2016 season it was very strenuous as far as the discipline I had to have in regards to my training, combined with television. It was one of those things where I knew I had to put the time in. So going into the season I was pretty sure this might be the last straw for me.”

Cash averaged just 5.3 points and 3.4 rebounds in her final season, a far cry from her halcyon days in Detroit, where her commitments were fewer and she put up numbers to rival the league’s elite.

Like Cash, Ginobili has more outside interests and influences tugging at him than he did when he first entered the league.

He established a charitable foundation, which delivers aid to Argentina through various means. He has shown an active interest in blogging his exploits, adventures and general musings on his personal website. He has two young children, Dante and Nicola, who pull at their father, wanting more and more of his time.

Despite an active life outside of basketball, Ginobili has played with only intermittent interruption since the Rio Games last August.

“Some days you feel proud and you think you did great,” Ginobili said. “Other games you think, ‘What the hell am I doing here? I might as well stay home and enjoy my kids.’ It’s a tough moment.”

The practices, the workouts, the relentless aches — it drains, both physically and spiritually.

“For me, it was all mental,” said Robert Horry, who won titles with Ginobili in 2005 and 2007 before retiring in 2008 at 37. “The mental part is, do you want to go through the grind of the summer, working out, getting in shape. I don’t think people understand how hard you work to get ready for the NBA season. That’s mentally taxing.”

At a certain point, every athlete reaches a tipping point. It happens even to those still wanted in uniform.

“I started not enjoying myself as much,” Duncan said. “It wasn’t fun at times. Obviously when that point comes, where it’s not fun anymore, I’m done.”

Ginobili has not reached the point his erstwhile running mate did. Yet.

“It wasn’t that hard to decide on keep playing,” said Ginobili, referring to his decision to re-sign with the Spurs last summer on a one-year deal. “I said many times last year that I had a blast. It was a great season, so once I felt the same enthusiasm, that I could keep helping the team and the team needs me, it was an easy decision to keep playing.”

The decision will be harder when this season concludes.

There are unavoidable obstacles — basketball behemoths in Golden State and Cleveland — standing in the way of a storybook ending like the one Manning enjoyed.

“For Argentina,” said Nicolas Lapprovitola, a Spurs rookie who played alongside Ginobili in Rio, “Manu is our Michael Jordan.”

The Argentine Jordan won’t go out quite like the original, who spent his last year starring on a 37-win Wizards team that missed the playoffs.

Ginobili will reach the postseason this spring for a 15th — perhaps final — time, still in his Spurs jersey months after turning 39.

“When I came to the league, playing till 35, 34 was a big goal,” Ginobili said. “I didn’t know how long I was going to last or play. I had no idea how I would adjust to a different league, different opponent, different everything. If you had asked me, ‘Are you going to play till 39?’ I would have said, ‘Come on. Who plays until 39?’ Back then, it was (John) Stockton, Kevin Willis and not many more.”

Right now, it is Manu Ginobili and not many more.

All things considered, he looks pretty good — for his age.

nmoyle@express-news.net