Puerto Rican Basketball Legends: El Nuevo Día presents the best 12 basketball players in the history of Puerto Rico

Few things generate more passion than basketball in Puerto Rico. And to celebrate that rich basketball tradition on the island, The new day presents Leyendas Boricuas del Básquet, a project in which the 12 best exponents of Puerto Rican men’s basketball are revealed, in order.

The project starts tomorrow, May 16, with the unveiling of the 12th basketball player on the list. One player will be posted weekly until the series ends with the greatest Puerto Rican basketball player of all time on Monday, August 1.

With this special series, The new day emulates the Leyendas Boricuas del Diamante and Leyendas Boricuas del Ring projects, which were launched in 2017 and 2019, respectively.

“The Leyendas del Diamante y del Ring series were a complete success and to the liking of our audiences. For us it is extremely important to honor that legacy of these legends and that they never be forgotten. We did that with baseball and boxing and now we will do with basketball.”expressed Esteban Pagán Rivera, sports editor of El Nuevo Día.

“This task of selecting the best 12 is not easy and that is why we recruited basketball experts to help us create this list. We are sure that former players who very well deserve to be on that list will be left out. But that healthy discussion between fans and connoisseurs that this list will cause is one of the beautiful things that this project brings”, added Pagán Rivera.

For the next 12 weeks, the Sports section will feature four additional pages dedicated exclusively to each legend with stories, historical photos and stats. The stories were written by journalist Raúl Álzaga, with extensive experience in basketball coverage and who joined the project as a special collaborator.

The content will also be available on endi.com, with a photo gallery and video of the basketball player.

How was the order of the list determined and who is the best Puerto Rican basketball player of all time? The new day recruited a panel of 13 basketball connoisseurs, and each was asked to submit a ballot with their top 12 players from Puerto Rico, in order.

Each ballot was given a score; the first player on the list was given 12 points, the second 11, the third 10, and so on. Collecting all the ballots, all the scores were added to prepare the list.

The voters were: Juan “Pucho” Figueroa, Armandito Torres, Chu García, Raymond Pérez, Ernesto Díaz González, Ibrahim Pérez, Rafael Bracero, Carlos Morales, Manolo Cintrón, Georgie Rosario, Francisco “Paquito” Rodríguez, Toñín Casillas and Julio Toro.

It should be noted that for the vote, the experts were asked to consider the international and local legacy of the players, and not just what was achieved in the National Superior Basketball.