The NBA is by no means a bed of roses for young players. Usman Garuba has been able to verify it in his own meats in just a few months. The pivot trained at Real Madrid and who was with the Spanish team at the Olympic Games is suffering and in a great way to get minutes on the other side of the pond.
Garuba, who is barely 19 years old, is owned by the worst team in the NBA – the Houston Rockets – and his big problem lies in the huge number of young people with possibilities that the Texas franchise has. The Spaniard debuted last night with the team’s affiliate, the Rio Grande Valleys Vipers, making a perfect stat card of 14 points with no shot failure and eight rebounds in a win with Mexico City Capitanes.
Usman Garuba has been perfect so far in his G League debut! @RGVVipers
12 points | 5-5 FG | 2-2 3PT | 7 rebounds pic.twitter.com/OM6sXF5O7I
— NBA G League (@nbagleague) November 21, 2021
The white squad awaits a ‘sentence’ of a few weeks in the team that plays its matches in the city of Edinburg, just 25 kilometers from the border between the United States and Mexico and where he will seek to remove the rust of the lack of competitive matches. The setting is not ideal for a Garuba leaving the comforts of Houston to move to live temporarily in a hotel and away from his few friends in the United States.
The former Real Madrid player came out in the last draft at number 23 and has a guaranteed contract this season and another, although there is the possibility that there will be many more trips to the branch. The situation is not ideal because the G League of the NBA often plays the role of a showcase where individual statistics are the only ones that count and where passes and karat basketball are conspicuous by their absence.
We will see what happens to a Garuba who never imagined that he could end up in such a situation. From being in the capital of Spain playing Euroleague to living on the border with Mexico -Yesterday without going any further he played against the capital’s team- with teammates with whom he has not lived even a preseason and sleeping in a hotel. Almost enough for a book.
