After a remarkable campaign in Barcelona, the young national prospect promises to become a key player in the rotation. Minnesota assistant Pablo Prigioni analyzes his season.
Leandro Bolmaro will land in the National Team concentration in Las Vegas after a dream season that began with his election in the NBA Draft and culminated with the consecration of his Barcelona in the ACB League in the classic against Real Madrid. The growth of the Argentine was unavoidable during a campaign of notable evolution in his game and in his role in the structure of one of the best teams in Europe.
In Argentine basketball, the words that Adam Silver mentioned on that night of November 18, 2020 when he pronounced the name of the national jewel, the second Argentine player in history to have been chosen in the first round after Carlos Delfino, still resonate: “The New York Knicks elect Leandro Bolmaro, from Córdoba, Argentina”.
Although the Knicks executed his pick, he was immediately transferred to the Minnesota Timberwolves who have Pablo Prigioni as an assistant. However, Bolmaro himself postponed his move – in agreement with the franchise, of course – to the most important league in the world to continue its development in European territory.
During his 2019-20 his productions had been punctual and urgent: the injuries of the bases Thomas Heurtel and Kevin Pangos had opened a door in the rotation of Svetislav Pesic to qualify the casualties in a position he was not used to. After nine games in the League and six in the Euroleague, Pesic drenched him with praise: “Football has its Leo (Messi) and now basketball too. I’m sure it will have a great future and it already has the respect of professionals“.
Barcelona did not hesitate and extended a renewal in August 2020 until 2023, weeks before Minnesota took over its NBA rights. That young man who was born in Las Varillas on September 11, 2000 – a member of the exciting Generation 2000 – who had been recruited from El Ceibo de San Francisco by Pepe Sánchez for Bahía Basket and had emigrated to Barcelona at the age of 17 with a suitcase Full of dreams, she had reached the top of international basketball but before making the final leap to North American basketball she decided to consolidate herself at Barça and Bolmaro did not fail.
Prigioni, who in his role as assistant for Minnesota Timberwolves followed his last campaign step by step, analyzed his production for Prensa CAB: ”The most important thing about Lea, whom I followed throughout the year and talking to him, is that he gained the coach’s trust in the second half of the season, based on his work and effort. The second part of the season has been very, very good for him, the coach said, he is visible in the numbers and that gave him great confidence in himself to do more and more things on both sides of the field. So they have also told me that he works a lot, that he works very hard, that he works very well.”.
The Lithuanian Sarunas Jasikevicius, who assumed the Blaugrana command after Pesic’s departure, adopted him as one of his favorites: “He has been one of the best, if not the best, in the effort. He is an example for the veterans. He showed incredible maturity. We see him every day in practice, he was one of the best throughout the year. Not at first. We gave him a lot of minutes and we went with the most veteran, but this is what great personalities do. They find a way to get their minutes. He was the first in our systems, he was the first competing and he has played incredible basketball. “.
His growth was remarkable, fully adapted to the club and the point guard position that gave Jasikevicius a fundamental versatility to also use him as guard or forward. The controversial departure of Heurtel to Real Madrid created a new opportunity for him that Bolmaro did not miss and won the arm wrestling against Léo Westermann as a substitute point guard: “Saras’s trust was won after Heurtel’s departure, a space was opened for him, Westermann was injured. The opportunity was presented to him and he took advantage of it very well, playing with great intensity, he gave answers to the team in the second half with his athletic ability”.
Bolmaro played 33 regular season games in the ACB League with a roster of 6.4 points, 1.8 assists and 1.5 rebounds in 15.5 minutes. In Euroleague he contributed 2.9 points, 1.3 assists and 1.1 rebounds in 9.8 minutes after thirty games. His growth during the season was evident in his postseason roster, in which he averaged 7.9 points, 1.9 assists and 1.6 rebounds in 17.5 minutes in the eight games that his team played to become champion in Spain. The Argentine prospect lifted two titles – he added the Copa del Rey to the ACB League – and his participation in the Euroleague Final Four, first against Armani Exchange Milan and then in the fall against Anadolu Efes Istanbul, was outstanding with more 25 minutes in each game.
Champion of Spain, Bolmaro made his dressing room dance to the rhythm of the popular Rodrigo in what could have been his last image with the Blaugrana shirt. Gersson Rosas, president of Minnesota Timberwolves, publicly expressed his intentions to add him to the franchise for 2021-22: “We have a player we selected last year who will come next year”.
The Argentine will have to make a decision that he will consult, as he declared a few months ago, with his agent and his family: “I don’t know what will happen, I still have to decide. When the season ends we will see with my representative if it is better to stay or go. We have not made a decision yet. I will see what is best for me: if the best thing for me is to leave or continue training at Barça “. If you decide to leave, you must pay your exit clause, close to $ 900,000, a formality since 750,000 can be provided by the franchise itself.
In addition to his final decision, Bolmaro will go through the preparation cycle towards the postponed Tokyo 2020 Games. In Las Vegas he will have the chance to add minutes and earn a place on the final list, a process similar to the one he went through in the 2019 Preselection Although it is most likely that his story has a different outcome: in the cycle heading to the 2019 China World Cup, it had been cut off in the previous Pan American in Lima.
“Bolmaro is already an Olympic-level athlete. He is prepared for that. That he played 20/25 minutes in a Euroleague Final 4 speaks for itself. The best, in your case, is what is to come, but you already have it, it is very important and it can help us a lot “Oveja Hernández himself explained when delivering the list of 15 summoned to travel to Las Vegas.
During training sessions in the United States, he will share his days with Prigioni, who, in addition to waiting for him in Minnesota, will join as an assistant to Oveja Hernández during the tour. Nobody better than him to do an X-ray of Bolmaro: “He is a player who is very good in the open field, not only does he run the field well but he can reach the basket with force. He also has very good vision for finding his companions in transition. He improved his three-point shot a lot, also the midrange, the short shot after spike turned into a shot that is very reliable. He also grew up organizing his team, knowing where to pass the ball and running offenses. Defensively he is a beast, a player who can grab the opponent all over the court with a very good physical display. Lea’s future is very, very good, and I hope that the National Team will benefit from her growth and from all the capacity that she has shown in the final part of the season. “.
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