SEE / Jimmy López Morillo
Greivis Vásquez, from the capital, the third Venezuelan to play in the NBA (National Basketball Association), made official what in practice was already a fact for some time: His official retirement from the sport in which he became known.
«Today, officially, I tell all of you that I am retiring from professional basketball. Already today Greivis Vásquez is a totally different person from the one he was as a player,” he released, in a conversation with the journalist Carlos Mauricio Ramírez, through the Instagram social network, in which he also announced that he is in the process of integrating the next campaign the coaching staff of the New Orleans Pelicans, a club that currently remains in the fight for classification in the fiery Western Conference of the most important league of this sport in the world.
Vasquez, 36, was a teammate of Kevin Durant, now one of the greatest players of all time, at Montrose Christian. Between 2006 and 2010 he studied and played for the University of Maryland, up to now holding first place in minutes played, with 4,569, and second best scorer in its history, with 2,171 points, at a rate of 16.0 per game, two of the main reasons. for which he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of said house of studies last year.
In 2010, he was selected 28th in the NBA draft by the Memphis Grizzlies, becoming the third native, behind Carl Herrera and Oscar Torres, to act at that level.
For the 2011-2012 campaign, he was traded to the then New Orleans Hornets (now the Pelicans), with whose uniform in the following season he was the leader of the entire circuit in total assists with 704, as well as third in assists per game with 9.0, escorting to Rajon Rondo and Chris Paul.
In July 2013 he was sent to the Sacramento Kings and in December of that same year he went to the Toronto Raptors, with whom he was until 2015-2016, when he went to the Milwaukee Bucks. The next, with the Brooklin Nets, was his last season in the NBA.
This year he was included among the 100 best point guards in the history of college basketball in the United States (NCAA) by the specialized website Big Game Boomer.
He made his debut with the National Team in 2007, adding among his participations the defense of the Creole colors in the FIBA Americas tournaments of that year, in addition to 2009 and 2011. He was also in the 2012 Olympic Repechage and in the 2012 South Americans (medal of Silver) and 2014, in which Venezuela won Gold and he took the Most Valuable Player award, scoring 24 points in the final.
