The 21-year-old 2m14 pivot is one of the biggest prospects in Argentine basketball and will have his first experience with the National Team in preparation for Tokyo. Says Juan Gatti, Oveja’s assistant.
Argentina, runner-up in the world, dreams of its present while simultaneously working to build the future. After successfully fulfilling the generational transfer between the Dorada litter and El Alma, national basketball begins to nurture, forge and polish the heirs that will be the standards for the next decade.
“I put together a preselection from which a team can come out as competitive as possible but which, at the same time, has a number of players who can be in our National Team for the next 10 years. We continue in the same line of the last years “, reflected coach Sergio Hernández on his call for the Tokyo Olympics.
Among the prospects that Oveja mentioned is Francisco Cáffaro, one of the new talents who will wear the light blue and white shirt during the preparation for the appointment in the Japanese capital in Las Vegas. The 21-year-old and 2m14 pivot will be part of the delegation that will travel to the United States on June 26 to face a preparation in which he will face the United States, Australia and Nigeria in four friendlies before leaving on July 16 for eastern lands. . It will be Cáffaro’s debut in the national team, a golden opportunity to learn and show himself in search of one of the 12 tickets to Japan.
Juan Gatti, who will once again fulfill his role as assistant to Oveja Hernández in his Asian journey before emigrating to Spain to join the CBA Academy, relies on his arguments: “The expectations placed on him are logical if we talk about such a great player with his technical conditions. We know that his work capacity and habits are expected to be part of such an important concentration and we are eager to work with him, first for the preparation for Tokyo and second for his individual development “.
Cáffaro went through practically all the stages of national training basketball and was part of various youth teams since he broke into the U15 in 2015. A member of the ideal quintet of the U18 World Cup in which Argentina won the bronze medal, he stood out in the 2019 U19 World Cup with a score of 7.4 points, 9 rebounds and 1.1 cover in 24 minutes in a squad that brought together other auspicious names. like Leandro Bolmaro, Marco Giordano, Fausto Ruesga, Francisco Farabello, Juani Marcos, Juan De la Fuente. “Without a doubt, he is one of the players with the greatest projection within the group of young Under 22s in Argentina”Gatti specified.
Having trained at the NBA Academy in Australia after his first steps in Trebolense, the prestigious University of Virginia of the NCAA recruited him in 2018, even before his World Cup production. Everything was smiles for Cáffaro, who stood out as a representative of his country and brand new acquisition of the Virginia Cavaliers. But when everything seemed like a perfect story, three injuries interrupted his evolution and transformed the dream into a nightmare: “Few in Argentina know what I have had to live in these years. I didn’t get to the point of wanting to retire but it was hard enough to talk about it with my family. I had a call with my family, with my mother and my brother. I told them that I was not going to leave, but that I had thought about it “.
There were three operations and their consequent periods of inactivity and uncertainty that seemed eternal. The first intervention was in the left knee due to a fissure in the femur that kept him away from the courts for nine months and prevented him from participating in the season in which Virginia won the national championship. Cáffaro lived from within the madness of March Madness and the Final Four, but did not add minutes after his university transformed him into a ‘redshirt’, a decision that implies suspending his participation throughout the campaign to extend the period of permanence in the team .
In his second year, the first year of activity, he suffered a ruptured vein in his leg after two knees to one of his quadriceps. The injury, uncommon in an athlete, caused the muscle to flood with blood causing an inflammation that took him to the edge of the abyss: “I couldn’t walk and the pain almost made me lose track of time. I had emergency surgery and I did not play for four months. I came back almost half of last season and I completed it “.
Just when he began to add minutes, the pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 campaign. On his return he suffered discomfort in his operated knee: he had had a bad reaction to the screws that had been installed in his first operation causing wear on his menisci and cartilage. Faced with such a situation, he went back to the operating room to remove the screws in a surgery that once again left him out of the court for almost three months.
“He remained active at the University of Virginia Cavaliers until a couple of injuries took away the continuity of the game, having played 42 games in the last two years with an average of seven minutes, 1.2 points and 1.1 rebounds in the first NCAA level. We hope that injuries and difficulties have been left behind “Gatti warned.
Once recovered, it was not easy for him to get into the Virginia rotation designed by coach Tony Bennett, as he detailed in January to CAB Press: “He’s using a short rotation, even though there are a lot of guys we can play with. The truth is that I am entering when we lose or win by a lot. At first it was difficult for me, I thought, why is this happening to me, but then I understood that I am just coming back from another injury and that we have a pivot who is super talented like Jay Huff, an athletic 2m16 who throws her from all sides and jumps like a kangaroo. He’s playing an offense with five wide players and that leaves less room for the pivots. “.
It was a slow year for Cáffaro, who averaged 1.3 points in 6.8 minutes in 17 games. In its Sophomore campaign, the University of Virginia took number one in the ACC conference but fell 62-58 in the March Madness first round against Ohio after suffering. The fall of the defending champions was a hit after a week in which they had to close their basketball activities after a positive case of coronavirus. In that decisive match, Cáffaro was just one of the three substitutes who entered from the bench and contributed a rebound in nine minutes.
His lack of filming promises to be a passing issue: “They told me to prepare well for next year”. After two years of apprenticeship, Coach Bennett promised him a leading role for the 2021-22 season as successor to starter Jay Huff who declared himself eligible for the next NBA Draft.
Meanwhile, and while studying the Global Social Commerce career, Cáffaro works to add a new dimension to his game: “I didn’t improve my shot before because I didn’t need it. Using my body and other resources I was able to unbalance. And that changed in these years in basketball. Now those with outside throwing play or have more chances. So I’m trying to get better at it. When I could train, I did. And my shot is much better than before. My goal, anyway, is to maintain my essence, that of a natural pivot, who plays close to the basket, but at the same time has a better shot. That’s what I want to get to when Huff leaves, who is in his last year of college. “.
His inactivity was one of the reasons why Cáffaro saw his call in January distant, in addition to his decision not to participate in the preparatory cycle for the Pan American Games in Lima and the World Cup in China: “I feel that I will not be cited, because I was not in the previous process nor had I the opportunity to show myself in these seasons. It is very difficult, due to the injuries I suffered and the lack of minutes. I really don’t see a chance that they will call me. Today at least. If my sports situation changes or if they decide to date me, I will go and try to do my best. But I’m not really thinking about that right now. “
“Those who know them well will not be surprised by their calls”, Oveja clarified about the group that Cáffaro integrates with Lauaro Berra and Juan Francisco Fernández. “None of them come as sparring or just to train, although it is clear that the subpoenas respond to the need we have for players with that biotype. We have a lack of these inner players and we want to see them as we continue to develop them. Do not forget that, being interns, day by day they will receive the master that Scola will give them. Surely one of the three will end up showing that they can be in Tokyo “.
For Cáffaro it will be the opportunity to learn, show himself and make his debut in the major league after his auspicious performances in the youth teams: “I wanted Cáffaro in the previous process and I couldn’t. He has a physique that is not normal for our country. He has not played at a professional level yet, and it will be his first experience in the majors but he has the conditions to fight for a place “, specified Sheep.
Gatti delves into the X-ray of who represents one of the greatest illusions for the future of national basketball due to his size, his athletic ability and his competitive spirit: “He is a pivot who plays well close to the basket, with 50% of his shares in that area. 22% of his actions are offensive rebound and only 5% are pick and roll. Perhaps its margin of development has to do with expanding this last section. However, in this type of concentration the important thing is what the team needs and, in this case, Cáffaro can contribute in addition to these offensive aspects, his defensive work, rebounds and the occupation of spaces “.
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