Rudy Fernández, a legend in the name of basketball

Maybe at some point we took it for granted that Rudy simply I was there. We assumed that he did not leave the basketball courts because where would i be otherwise. Yes or yes, we counted on the Mallorcan forward as if, in his case, commitment and longevity came as standard. But reality is never that simple, and those values ​​end up defining who cultivates them as much or more than the baskets, the winning defenses or the Cups to the sky of a million pavilions: Rudy Fernández (Palma de Mallorca, 1985) could have moved away some time ago, at least from some puddle. But he keeps getting into everyone because, and at 37 he’s not going to change, that’s how he has decided to live basketball. When he finally lands and looks back, you will discover that his legacy is that of a world basketball legend. Gigantic, unique, in Spanish, to whose history each of her steps has already been sewn. That they continue to make their way.

“I see that I can continue contributing, and for this I am. If not, I would have no qualms about taking a step back. I see myself capable of continuing to help the team”, he said simply to AS this summer, before embarking on that mission that ended up being prodigious, that of the improbable gold medal in Berlin with the Spanish National Team.

One of the best, Rudy has spent a good part of his career battling back problems that threatened to shorten his career and forced him to modulate his style of play. When he overcame a couple of ugly physical thrusts from him, he decided to be eternal: debuted in the ACB in 2002, twenty years ago. And he debuted with the absolute team at the 2004 Olympic Games, almost by surprise. He played in the NBA (2008-11) and later became a kind of working star. In one of the best Real Madrid we have seen and in a thousand different faces of a golden era of the National Team that does not end and in which he has become, commitment and longevity, the golden thread that sews times together.

Number 24 of the 2007 draft, a year before making the jump to the NBA after the Beijing Games, hIt has been one of those rare jewels that understand that there are different ways to contribute and, finally, lead. Who know how to stratify their career without being blinded by the flash off to a stunning start. Jonathan Givony, one of the great experts in scouting of young talent from the American press, I wrote this about him months before Beijing 2008, when he had just been Cup champion and MVP with Joventut and was about to become the Top Scorer of the 2007-08 League: “In the ACB he beats everyone else by a body and is now one of the best players in Europe. He has become a nightmare for opposing defenses because his shot allows him to score from anywhere on the court. You can’t give him an inch because he’ll bury you under a flurry of baskets in the blink of an eye. He can also play a creator for his teammates because he sees the game very well and makes decisions very quickly.”.

In that 2008 Cup, Joventut was champion after going through a hellish team: Valencia, Real Madrid and Baskonia. Rudy showed that he was indeed capable of generating (nine assists in the semifinal) and scoring (32 points in a colossal performance in the final). His career, which at that moment was taking off without a ceiling being guessed, has ended up becoming a succession of postcards that, all together, form the puzzle of an incredible journey: of flying around the track with that great Joventut in which he coincided with Ricky Rubio, new young guns of European basketball, to rise above Dwight Howard himself in one of the best plays of one of the best games in the history of FIBA ​​basketball, the USA-Spain in Beijing 2008. From an NBA dunk contest and the traces of poster star to lengthen your journey transcendent player thanks to toughness and intelligence, leadership and defense, intangibles IQ: knowledge of the game. Finally, a X Factor inevitable in the great Real Madrid of Laso and a benchmark and captain in the National Team, where he has transmitted a way of competing between two eras: from that of the favorite who did not fail to that of the undercover who wins by teeth.

Last season, difficult for him personally due to the death of his father, ended with the conquest of two eight thousand: the ACB League against a Barça whose dominance in the face-to-face matches Real Madrid turned around like a sock when in truth it mattered; And gold at Eurobasket 2022, a success so unlikely that it was basically impossiblewith a Spain between the wars and reconstruction. But with Rudy in front, the master piece of Sergio Scariolo’s puzzle: “He is a great player and a great person, a fantastic leader. He is an example, I have a hard time holding back tears with him”, said the Italian after the berlin miracle about a referent that, with the era of the Juniors of Gold increasingly distant, has a shot Paris 2024 and be, if the body holds up, the first basketball player to play six Olympic Games: “I will not deny that I know it is there. But I listen to my body, how I am feeling. I only plan to go day by day”, he told AS. To a good understander…

Rudy Fernández’s resume is a volume of European basketball history. eithereleven medals with the absolute Selection with 16 years between the first (the Saitama World Cup) and the last, for now, the Eurobasket that Spain was not going to win Berlin. A Cup, a ULEB and a EuroChallenge with Joventut. Y everything you want to add with Real Madrid: two Euroleagues, six Leagues, five Cups, eight Super Cups, one Intercontinental… and many individual recognitions that fell under their own weight, when the dazzling flash of its beginnings became a much more temperate but inexhaustible light, a constant source of energy, and basketball, which changed winning MVPs to being essential for others win them. that she got into in all the photos of some teams that are already history of our basketball. His, the one that traces the path of Rudy Fernández, has not finished yet. Fortunately.