Sam Amick

USA TODAY Sports

LOS ANGELES — As NBA player blueprints go, you'd think Manu Ginobili's would be more popular.

Wildly talented scorer accepts a reserve role early on, then blossoms into one of the best super subs in the history of the game en route to winning four championships and earning more than $100 million over his 13-year career. But the sixth-man stigma, it seems quite clear, remains.

Just ask the Oklahoma City Thunder, who lost James Harden two years ago, in part, because he had no interest in following in Ginobili's footsteps and now have a similar quandary with young guard Reggie Jackson leading into his free agency next summer. Or the Phoenix Suns, who have point guard Isaiah Thomas making $28 million over the next four years to play that role yet spending his days dreaming of being a starter. Or the Cleveland Cavaliers, who so badly need young Dion Waiters to embrace his recent reassignment and become an impact player off the bench. Or the Golden State Warriors, who convinced veteran small forward Andre Iguodala to play the sixth man role but are well aware he would prefer to start.

Yet in this era in which the "Big Three" model is hailed as the only path to championship prominence, the more subtle role of a sixth man can often make or break a team's title hopes as well.

"It's not as common as you may think, given the success we've had," Ginobili told USA TODAY Sports. "But I understand when 20- to 23-year-old guys don't want to do it. They think they can take the NBA by storm. They want to (get) their numbers. They want to get paid. So I can imagine why they don't want to do it early in their career."

Of all the factors that creating the sixth man stigma, economics play a huge part. Players simply don't trust that they'll be rewarded in the same way for being a reserve, and the fanfare surrounding the role doesn't extend much further than the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award that Ginobili has, amazingly, won just once (2007-08).

Players such as Ginobili and last season's award winner, Jamal Crawford of the Los Angeles Clippers, remain the exception. Both have had seasons in which they started more than they came off the bench, but ultimately served as sixth men more often than not during the course of their respective careers. Yet Crawford, like Ginobili, has done more than fine on the financial front. According to Spotrac.com, Crawford's career earnings (about $83.4 million) rank second among all current Clippers players (Chris Paul is at $113.8 million).

But as 30-year-old Iguodala sees it, there's more to it than money. The simple desire to start and attain that status, Iguodala said, is something that starts early in most players' lives and never seems to leave.

"Guys are wired like that from a young age," he told USA TODAY Sports. "I mean I've been playing basketball since I was five, and you're just so used to just starting the game. Even when you're young, it's 'Starters vs. Scrubs.' That was kind of the (mentality).

"If a guy is in front of you, then it's like, 'Well the guy is in front of me so I've got to go get his job.' Really, in the NBA, it's 'I need to get paid like a starter.' A team is not going to say, 'I'm going to spend $10 million for a guy to come off the bench.' A team is not going to do that. Or it's very, very rare."

Iguodala is one of those exceptions, as he's making $12.2 million this season while the player who was given his starting spot by Warriors coach Steve Kerr, third-year small forward Harrison Barnes, is making approximately $3 million. He's clearly conflicted about playing this role — not surprising considering he had started in all 758 games of his 10-year career coming into this season — but said Kerr made the transition easier by being transparent.

"I think the best way to (convince players to play the sixth man role) is to just be honest about it," Iguodala said. "What are you trying to do? What's your goal? Why do you think it works? And that's what Coach Kerr did. He was like, 'All right, I think you're better playing with the second unit because the second unit (will be) better — you make them go.' I was like, 'All right, cool.'..I mean I can argue, and say, '(Expletive), I make the first team better too. I don't care who I'm playing with, I'm making everybody better.' "

But he won't, especially so long as the Warriors keep winning.

"I don't wrestle with (the new notion of playing the role)" said Iguodala, who added he thinks longtime Los Angeles Lakers sixth man Lamar Odom was the best to ever play the role. "The only time I think about it is when I get asked about it, so I just deflect the question, like, 'I don't want to talk about it.' That's just how I deal with it. Don't ask me about it. I'm just going to be ready to play tomorrow.

"We're all human, and I think that's a part that can't be measured. When you look at (basketball) analytics, there's nothing in there that talks about how, 'He's a human being and what's he thinking?... That's another big thing when you decide who to bring off the bench. Some guys, mentally, can't take it. Other guys might be able to. So a guy may actually be a better player, and he should be starting, but he can't take coming off the bench better than the other guy so you just flip-flop them around."

Thomas, for one, would be fine if Suns coach Jeff Hornacek swapped him and starting point guard Eric Bledsoe.

When he signed his four-year, $28 million deal during the summer, Bledsoe's restricted free agency future was still uncertain and the slight chance remained that Thomas could wind up in a starting role. But Bledsoe landed the kind of monstrous extension he was pushing for (five years, $70 million) and Thomas — who averaged 20.3 points and 6.3 assists last season for the Sacramento Kings and started in 54 of 72 games — found himself back in a reserve role.

"We had meetings (recently) with the coaches and the general manager, and they even said, 'On 29 other teams, you'd probably be starting, and it takes a lot to put your pride aside and do what's best for the team," Thomas told USA TODAY Sports earlier this season. "I just know everything is subject to change. I mean, it's a long season. There are highs and lows."

So, Thomas was asked, does that mean starting remains a goal?

"That's my plan," said Thomas, whose current production (16.9 points, 4.4 assists, two rebounds and 24.4 minutes per game) is outpacing Bledsoe's (14.1 points, 5.1 assists, 4.1 rebounds and 31.0 minutes per game). "Every day that I come in, that's what I want to do. That's been my mindset from Day One, since I was a little boy. I mean, everybody wants to be a starter. I'd be lying to you if I said it doesn't bother me that I don't start, but I'm going to do what's best for this team and continue to work, continue to be me, and hopefully one of these days my name is called and I'll be a starter and that's that. I can only do what I can control, and that's being me and giving it my all and the coach has got to do the rest."

Even Ginobili can relate.

In his second season in San Antonio, the Argentine phenom thought he was well on his way to a long career as a starter in the NBA. But when the Spurs hit a midseason skid, coach Gregg Popovich came to him with an idea that would require some sacrifice for the greater good.

"I thought I was doing all right (as a starter), and one day in the middle of the season when we were struggling and he came and talked to us and 'boom,' he said it, and I was kind of hurt," said Ginobili, who has started in 349 of his 800 regular-season games but only 10 since the start of the 2011-12 season. "I thought I wasn't guilty of what was going on (with the team), that I was doing alright, but he made himself clear that it wasn't a punishment. It was just a tweak. He needed something different from me, and I understood. Like I said, it hurt at the beginning but I understood it. The following year, I started many games, then went back to the bench, and it was up and down from there."

Ginobili, who signed a two-year, $14 million contract in 2013 that may be his last, said there was a time when he was worried the reserve role would impact his earnings.

"The first time (Popovich asked him to come off the bench), I was (worried about the financial factor) because it happened when I came from overseas and I had only two years (on his contract) and it happened in my second year, so it was in the back of my head a little bit," he said. "It bothered me a little bit, but I knew that we had a big shot at winning a championship, and it's always better in any position to win a championship than not…I thought it was going to hurt me in my next deal, and then I realized that it was what's best for the team and I would do just fine."

As Ginobili noted, his personal background made it all that much easier to accept the reserve role.

"I started (his professional career) as a backup in the Argentina league, where I didn't play, so it's not like I was predestined to be an NBA player at 18," he said. "I was there. I was happy to be in the Argentina league. Then I started to play slowly, and I went to Italy and I started in the second division.

"I started slowly, and then when I got here I really appreciated being respected, being a big part of this team, and knowing after my first season that I was going to be here for a while. I appreciated the environment. I knew that it wasn't the same everywhere else, that I was in a great situation with a great coach and great everything, so I chose to enjoy it…Considering where I come from, I knew I was going to do just fine."

If only more players would see it the same way.

"Manu has been really paramount to our success, because there aren't a lot of NBA players of his caliber that would go for that (role)," Popovich said Monday. "To come off the bench all these years has been a tribute to his character, really, and it's made us a pretty good basketball team. He allows us to have a heck of a bench. He's a special guy."