point scorer for his life and now he's 40: Happy Birthday to El Capitan
Ivan Mariani
How many official games has Luis Scola played in his life?
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Pallacanestro Olimpia Milano
How many official games has Luis Scola played in his life? We tried to make an account: 523 between Spain (only in La Liga), China and Italy, including the European competitions, 791 in the NBA including the playoffs, 30 in the Olympics, another 139 with the National team. He made his national team debut on 15 June 1999 against Ecuador, scoring 12 points at the Casanova of Bahia Blanca. With 2,791 points he is the first scorer in the history of the Argentinian National team, 9,201 points were scored in the NBA, 8,396 between European cups and national leagues. The second Spanish league, the Argentine league and the national youth teams are not counted. He had 20,883 points scored in 1,483 games. Today Luis Scola turns 40.

In Argentina they call him “El Capitan”, the Captain, symbol, flag, a little bit of everything, but above all the link between the “Golden Generation” that has made Argentine basketball a world powerhouse and the new frontier represented by players who won the silver medal at the World Cup in China. All Argentine players hang from his lips. It was crystal-clear, traveling with him in all around Europe. Scola speaks and the others listen. It is a beautiful form of respect for a player who was there when the EuroLeague played its first season under the current umbrella and was still there this year. In between, a fantastic running story, because Luis is still the King of the pivot foot, of the fakes, of the low-post game to which he added over time the three-point shot as well as the innate ability to read the defense and hurt it with a crispy pass.

El Capitan comes from Buenos Aires, the capital of football, the place where he decided to do something else, to play basketball. “Argentina is a football country, as there are many others, but there is also room for other sports. Basketball does not have the popularity of football, but we are doing well “. After all, there is a reason if Luis Scola, a basketball player, in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro was chosen as the flag-bearer during the opening ceremony. “It was the highlight of my career – he says – The picture of me, with the flag and the whole Argentine delegation behind it, sums up my whole career. Whatever I did on the court should be mentioned after the honor of carrying the flag in Rio. It was the most important thing that I have achieved.” Four years earlier, in Beijing, it was Ginobili who did the job, who had the honor.

Scola began playing in Buenos Aires, played for the Ferro Carril Oeste, a team which won three Argentine championships in the 1980s and also won the South American club championship. It is a historical basketball club, but Luis Scola is clearly the most famous player to have ever been part of it. Only, he left to play in Spain when he was a teen-ager. The next step was Vitoria, Basque Country. “My connection with Vitoria is special. I had the chance to stay there for so many years, and without a doubt it was fundamental to make me grow as a person. Even as a player, but above all as a person. My first kids were born while I was playing in Vitoria. The things I did in my career, and I didn’t even think I could do it, make Vitoria a place that will always be special to me.”Before Vitoria launched his career, Scola played on loan in Gijon. He was one of the many Argentine players who in those years left an economically challegend country to try to become players abroad. “At least 200 of them left, you made it or you had to come back,” he said in an interview with Il Corriere della Sera.

In Vitoria, he won the Spanish title and played three consecutive EuroLeague Final Fours, on top of a championship series against – of all the teams – Ettore Messina’s Virtus in 2001. Scola was 21, but he was already one of the team’s key players along with another Argentine’s big man, Fabricio Oberto. Virtus was led by Manu Ginobili. “We have had some great EuroLeague seasons, we achieved the goals, made the Final Four three years in a row. I think it didn’t mean to be for us, and at some point we had to look ahead, I went to the NBA. It wasn’t meant to be, but I don’t think about it much, it doesn’t bother me, many of the things we did are the same as winning the EuroLeague,” he says. When he decided to go to the NBA, in Houston, he was already 27 years old. And he was already an Olympic champion. “We had a great group of players, who happened to play well together and to get along well together. We made a lot of noise in the basketball world. That team will always be remembered, but we also have many other things too, new players to show, goals to achieve in the future,” Scola says. In Athens, in 2004, when Argentina won the title, Italy finished second. Scola scored 25 points in the final game. He was the top scorer. The MVP as a fact. The “albiceleste” was also the team that eliminated the United States in the semifinal games.

But Scola has been a winner wherever he played. In his rookie season, in Houston, the Rockets won 22 games in a row. “It was fun. I used to come off the bench, but one day, Yao Ming got sick and I moved to the starting line-up. That was the first of 22 consecutive wins. I’ve been lucky. Who moves to the starting-five and win his first 22 games? Until that moment I had been a reserve, then I went to the starting line-up and stayed there for the next six years.” In the NBA he gradually added the three-point shot to his repertoire. But the changes – he says – are necessary to survive and prosper. “When I came from Argentina to Europe I had to adapt to the differences. The same when in Gijon from the second division, we went to the first division, in Spain (he was on loan-ed). The game gets faster, the players are bigger, more talented. In Vitoria, I debuted in the EuroLeague and I had to change further, because in the EuroLeague there are the best teams in the continent and playing is difficult. The NBA is completely different. The need to adapt follows you throughout your career. Basketball also changes, not just the game, the basketball and the way we play it. You must be constantly able to adapt and change, your game, your body to keep up with the pace and what the game throws at you.”

The choice to continue came after the world silver medal conquered in China. “I was sure that we would have done well and that I would have played well, because I am an optimist. I had also talked to Coach Messina, but it was not the right time yet. After the World Cup, I looked at all the options and chose Milan”. But its longevity has no secrets. He said it many times this year, in every corner of the world: “You have to work, train well, prepare yourself, eat well, sleep well. But they are not secrets, everyone knows that, then it is a matter of doing those things or not.”