The image was devastating. The president of San Pablo Burgos, a real estate businessman whose name I don’t want to remember, went down to the track after a defeat and forced his players to kneel in midfield and ask the fans for forgiveness after having consummated his relegation from the Endesa League. The photograph shows a well-suited guy pointing to the floor while bellowing with a tense and authoritative gesture. Seeing the image I thought: “this is not basketball, this is not the sport I love”.
I felt bad for the players, but above all because none of them stood up to the investor -who is unifying the football, basketball and handball teams of Algeciras, according to how they told me not long ago- and told him no, that slavery does not exist in Spain, and that he was not going to accept that way of deriving responsibilities for his poor sports management towards some professionals who were emotionally shattered at that precise moment. Sure, you have to be understanding with them. He would catch them in a moment of weakness and sadness, they would be forced under pressure. What would the partners say if one of them had refused to genuflect? Surely it would have been marked forever. I am not going to charge the inks against the players, who already had enough with that situation so ridiculous and embarrassing. But that’s not basketball.
Basketball is Laia Palau retiring after a successful career, at the age of 42, having been an example for two or three generations of players and fans. Or the very young Luka Doncic, who left Real Madrid to break the schemes of an NBA crazy about the triple, thanks to Stephen Curry. Basketball is also Richi González Dávila, an emigrant coach, always ready to offer a good analytical commentary, an interesting video, the wonderful gift of the pass. Basketball is Kobe Bryant turned legend. They are the sport that I love.
We are talking about a gregarious and community sport where the best and the worst coexist with a single goal inside a human and perfect hive. Michael Jordan taught us that a star player who scored 35 points per game was nobody in the playoffs without teammates to put up the blocks, to defend until exhaustion, to score in the decisive moments. That is the magic of basketball: the collective effort generates miracles, comebacks, successes and victories. And defeats.
Basketball is also seeing yourself outmatched one on one, five on five, with someone else’s board. Basketball is losing and learning, overcoming frustration with elegance and courage, just enough to set the goal of revenge. It is a sport in which, as in life, where you learn the most is in the low moments. And it teaches you to overcome them, to get ahead, to strive to improve.
For me it is the perfect sport and I have been fortunate and privileged to enjoy the multiple successes that the discipline has offered in Spain, at all national and international competitive levels. After years of setbacks, yes. That is why we have to be careful with these investors from other places, from other sports. They don’t love basketball. For them not a religion of the heart, but just another housing development. And its players, mere disposable instruments. People like this leftover in basketball, let’s try not to let them in.
