When the clock struck midnight, the signing of Willy Hernangómez by FC Barcelona became official. The former Real Madrid youth squad leaves the NBA and signs for three seasons for the current league champion. And he won’t be the only one. In the next few days, it is expected that the signing of Juancho, his brother, will also be finalized. If he does not sign for Barça, he will end up getting a very high contract in a Euroleague team. Two Spanish players who last year had limited minutes in the best league on the planet and who have decided to look for a better opportunity back home, in Europe. And with his departure, the NBA is orphaned by Spaniards.
Because in the absence of confirmation, the season that begins in October will be the first since 2005/06 with less than five Spaniards. The departures of the Hernangómez brothers, together with the more than probable loss of Serge Ibaka, which has not yet sounded for any team during free agency, leaves the total number of Spaniards with a contract at three. The first and oldest is Ricky Rubio who is still in Cleveland and he has a contract for this season and partially guaranteed for the next one; Santi Aldama, also with two extra years of contract in Memphis; and finally a Usman Garuba who has been traded twice in the past two weeks and is currently part of Oklahoma’s roster. Considering that the Thunder have 21 players on the team, Usman could move again before the start of the course.
To go back in time to a season with so few national players, you have to travel to the rookie year of José Manuel Calderón. Spain had not yet won the World Cup in Japan, since we are in October 2005. At that time Pau Gasol he was already the star of the Grizzlies, and Warm he was packing his bags for Toronto to be the second Spaniard in the league. that same summer Raul Lopez He was making the reverse trip back to Europe after two years with the Utah Jazz. The three of them, together with the pioneer Ferdinand Martin in 1986, they were the only players from the Spanish team who had dared to set foot in the NBA. Since then, the arrival of new faces has been a constant: between the gold of Saitama and the Olympic Games in Beijing, in 2008, came Sergio Rodríguez, Jorge Garbajosa, Juan Carlos Navarro, Serge Ibaka, Marc Gasol and Rudy Fernándezwith more or less success in American basketball.
The peak performance of national players came in 2017 with up to ten. Brothers Gasol led the largest delegation in history with Chaldean Empire still as veterans, and the arrival of the new generation of the selection. Ricky Rubio, Nikola Mirotic, the Hernangómez brothers, Alex Abrines and a Sergio Rodríguez who tried again, this time in Philadelphia after six years in Madrid. The problem is that since 2017 only two players have debuted, Garuba and Aldama. On the contrary, most of the Junior de Oro have been leaving the league and there has not been a generational change.
Although it is expected to arrive in the coming years. The team that was proclaimed U-19 world champion just two weeks ago has enough names to excite Spanish basketball. According to draft experts, Izan Almansa and Baba Miller should be fixed picks in the first round and names like Juan Nuñez, Jordi Rodríguez, Michael Caicedo or even Aday Marawho could wait two seasons to enter the draft, could be selected during the ceremony. By 2025, one year later, Hugo González appears among the most attractive names, leaving 2026 for Mario Saint-Supery. The future of Spanish basketball is bright and it will be in the NBA, but there will be one or two seasons of transition until the new generation arrives and settles in the best league in the world. While they arrive, it’s time to continue enjoying Ricky, Aldama and Garuba.
Sports journalist covering the NBA from Toronto. Leaving from Barcelona, he has lived in Boston, Sydney and Bogotá before staying in Canada to bring the best basketball league on the planet. All NBA, a bit of basketball, because he grew up with Tracy McGrady and Pau Gasol, but also with Sarunas Jasikevicius and Arvydas Macijauskas. He studied journalism in Barcelona, where he worked in various media and radio stations, and currently also collaborates with Gigantes del Basket and NBA Spain. He was in the NBA finals in which Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka and Sergio Scariolo got their first ring. If you don’t see him here, he’s probably on Twitter. …
2023-07-13 05:30:55
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