Second Spanish movement in the NBA. Minnesota Timberwolves have traded Juancho Hernangómez and Jarrett Culver to the Memphis Grizzlies for Patrick Beverley, as reported by Adrian Wojnarowski (ESPN). The power forward lands, in this way, in a franchise with a lot of Spanish past and present: Pau and Marc Gasol started his career in the North American League in Tennessee and Santi Aldama was chosen in the position number 30 from the first round in the 2021 draft. Juan Carlos Navarro also played his only season in the United States there.
The Grizzlies will be the Spanish international’s third franchise in his five years in the NBA, six counting the next. He was chosen in the 2016 draft with the pick 15 for the Denver Nuggets, where he spent three and a half seasons. Those from Colorado transferred him to the Wolves, with whom he played for a year and a half.
Hernangómez, one of the seven Spaniards in the NBA this course, signed a three-year, $ 21 million contract with Minnesota in November 2020. Of the 12.7 that remain to be collected, he is guaranteed 6.1 million this season. The 6.6 of the next one will be safe from June 30, 2022.
The first operation involving a Spanish player this summer was that of Ricky Rubio. The point guard also left the Timberwolves in the direction of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The transfer took place during the Olympic Games that Juancho could not play by order of the Wolves after suffering a grade 4-5 acromioclavicular dislocation in the left shoulder in the second friendly against France, played in Malaga.
Outside the Games
This Minnesota decision did not conform, according to Jorge Garbajosa, to reality. According to the president of the FEB, the definitive medical examination of the player in Las Vegas received the go-ahead by the Minnesota physiotherapist (Erin Sierer) and, by videoconference, by two professionals from the franchise’s medical services (the manager and the shoulder traumatologist).
However, Gersson Rosas, president of Wolves operations, gave effect to this decision.. He claimed that the player should fully recover and that his presence in Tokyo was dangerous. And that the confusion to these changes of direction was due to a problem of interpretation on the part of the members of the FEB. A statement that Garbajosa rejected outright within hours of starting the Games: blamed the refusal on purely business reasons.
“Minnesota gives as a reason that their doctors have never given the ‘ok.’ There were six people from the national team at that meeting who testify that they clearly gave the ‘yes’. In the 21st century, with six people who speak English perfectly, it is incomprehensible to give that reason, “said Garbajosa.
