Spain continues in the labyrinth, failing to find a solution to all the doubts that haunt the team just two weeks before its debut at the Eurobasket. After a very harsh correction by Antetokounmpo’s Greece in Athens (86-70) and the subsequent revenge in Madrid (87-80), the team added a new defeat against Lithuania in Gran Canaria on Tuesday (77-82) and today (18.30 hours, Teledeporte) will face again in the last friendly of the tour the powerful Baltic team, one of the candidates to get on the podium in the great continental event. The balance is not entirely negative, since the explosion of Willy Hernangomez as a reference in a rival field or the correct adaptation of Lorenzo Brown, a Spanish citizen just a month and a half ago, give some hope for the team when it arrives in Georgia, where it will play the group stage of the tournament.
But the truth is that some pieces creak and good news is not abundant in a group that long ago assumed that the glorious past is simply that, the past. Scariolo strives to expose the new faces to the most hostile scenarios possible, in search of soldiers who prove to be made of a different paste. In the midst of this difficult scenario has emerged Jaime Pradilla (Zaragoza, 21 years old), a promising Spanish basketball player who in less than a year (he made his senior debut in November) has gone from being one of the most promising profiles in the national basket to one of the team’s indispensable men, starting undisputed and new golden boy of the national team.
Last Thursday, while Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Real Madrid star Vinicius Junior attracted all the lights in the bowels of the WiZink Center after the Spanish victory, Scariolo, with his usual snigger, showed reality. “We have players who are substitutes in their teams and here starters.” A phrase to verify both the new reality of the team and to praise the great moment that Pradilla lives during this preparation tour.
Last season, the Aragonese was one of the best young projects in the ACB in the ranks of Valencia Basket, a team with whom, however, he only played an average of 13 minutes per game. Statistics that contrast with those accumulated in red: in the first two duels against the Hellenic team, only the Hernangómez brothers, cornerstones of the new Spain, have played more minutes than the power forward, whom Scariolo does not hesitate to match in defense with NBA stars like the aforementioned Antetokounmpo or the Lithuanian centers Domantas Sabonis and Jonas Valanciunas, despite the fact that he is the youngest player in the squad.
In addition, in the Madrid match against Greece he was the team’s second highest scorer (12 points), only behind Willy Hernangómez. A different player, far from the typical Spanish profile in which technique prevails over physique. Effort and intelligence are his hallmarks, slogans that seem to have dazzled Scariolo in a moment of need.
There is blind faith from the coaching staff in Pradilla, either for the Eurobasket or for the immediate future, and from the national team they assure that despite the backpack of responsibility that has been given to the man, he is living the concentration with great naturalness and tranquility. «I am fighting to be on the final list of the 12 who go to EurobasketAlthough I know it’s complicated. I’ve only been a professional for two years but yes, you can say that I’m in the best moment of my career,” the interior assured the media this week. Despite the fact that his role in the national team seems an anomaly, the truth is that Pradilla has made it common to burn through stages at breakneck speed.
a meteoric run
After passing through the Zaragoza youth academy, where he shared a dressing room with Carlos Alocén, another of the men destined to lead Spain in the future, the power forward reached the EBA league, the fourth category of Spanish basketball, at just 16 years old, where He played in the ranks of the Aragonese club El Olivar, signing monstrous statistics despite his youth, 17.4 points and 10.9 rebounds per game. Later he went through the Palencia Basket of LEB Oro, in 2020 and at the age of 19, when he was claimed by the Zaragoza to dispute the final phase of the ACB after the break caused by the coronavirus. His performances and precocity led him to sign the following year for Valencia Basket, one of the most important clubs in the country. Today, Spain breathes easier when the ‘4’ enters the track.
friendlies are over
Spain will debut in the second qualifying group for the 2023 World Cup on the 24th against Iceland in Pamplona, for the second match of the phase against the Netherlands on the 27th away from home. On September 1, he will debut in the Eurobasket against Bulgaria at the Tsbilis Arena in Georgia. The hosts, Montenegro, Turkey and Belgium complete the selection group
