Willy Hernangómez, world and European gold, and invisible in the NBA

Current world and European champion with Spain.

Named the best player in the Eurobasket won with the national team a month and a half ago.

Top scorer (17.2 points per game) and rebounder (6.9) of the champion team in the European event.

A star.

And yet, the last substitute on his team in the NBA.

The case of Willy Hernangómez reflects that very different look that sometimes European basketball and the American league have on one of his pieces.

The center from Madrid, 28 years old and 2.09m, returned to New Orleans at the end of September to enroll in his third season with the Pelicans with a different suit than the one he wore before the summer.

In any case, what was not in any forecast is his cornering in the six games played by the Pelicans in the season.

Willy has only participated in two of them, and almost on tiptoe: 14 minutes in total, just over five against Charlotte and the rest against Phoenix;

and four points, one assist and nine rebounds, five on defense and four on offense.

At the last stop, last Sunday's game against the Clippers, he was the only one on the Pelicans' roster who didn't play a second.

An

in the shade.

More information

Interview with Willy Hernangómez: "I'm like my mother, stubborn, I'm going to the end"

“I want to play, they know I want to play and I hope it's here and it doesn't happen like other years.

I come with a lot of confidence.

After the Eurobasket there are more teams interested in me”, expressed Willy before the start of the season, landed in the NBA as the best of the Eurobasket.

With the national team he was always the starting five, he came out the winner against walls like Sabonis and Gobert, and in the quarterfinals against Finland he emerged with 27 points.

Willy made good the plan of the coach, Sergio Scariolo, who pressed him to be "a star".

Much of the individual work of the Italian coach focused on the center raised in Las Rozas, son of a European champion with Spain, Wonny Geuer, and a former Real Madrid player, Guillermo Hernangómez.

Scariolo understood that it was the time and the stage to take that step forward that in previous appointments had been vetoed by the gigantic presence of the Gasol brothers.

In Tbilisi and in Berlin, European venues, Willy Hernangómez finally had a free court.

“He understood that he had two legends ahead of him [Pau and Marc] and he waited for his moment.

Now he had to assume that role.

He did it and it is an assumption of responsibility for the future.

Willy is a player who has room for improvement and whom his teammates will look at with different eyes because they expect him to be a leader, an example and a reference every day, every game.

Willy and Juancho Hernangómez, with the Eurobasket trophy. ANNEGRET HILSE (REUTERS)

The player himself, also in an interview in this newspaper, assumed these new obligations: “I am very happy to be a leader and have more responsibility.

I feel more important.

After the work of these years that sometimes has not been seen so much, now I enjoy minutes and confidence.

My best basketball is yet to come”.

Willy was the leader on the track for the champion Spain, as was Rudy in the dressing room and Scariolo on the board.

With those strong man traits, he planted himself in New Orleans just a week after kissing the continental gold.

In the American team they received him with a surprise dinner and a cake.

The squad had gathered to watch Spain's games from the Round of 16 against Lithuania, and Willy was knocking on the door to at least be an important player in the Pelicans' rotation.

But the technician, Willie Green, hardly includes him in the wheel.

Jonas Valanciunas, Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, Larry Nance Júnior and Jaxson Hayes are the competition that has left the Spanish star almost blank so far.

The change of air if the situation continues like this is taking shape.

"He has a lot of people ahead of him," says José Luis Pichel, current interim coach of Fuenlabrada and the coach who works individually with Willy Hernangómez during the summers.

“American franchises sometimes look for things other than what we expect and that is beyond the control of the player.

We in European basketball place a lot of value on players who compete well.

Under our prism, Willy and Valanciunas are the two best five of the team in an indisputable way.

But sometimes other basketball values ​​are prioritized there, contracts weigh or want to show a player.

I hope his situation changes as soon as possible, either because he plays more or because there is a transfer.

This is a very important year for Willy and out of respect for him they will not want to have him there without playing”.

The Spanish center has two more contract years ahead of him with the Pelicans, although the New Orleans team can unilaterally break that bond next June.

The cut would leave Willy a free agent and little exposure if he continues to warm up on the bench.

At stake is his continuity in an NBA where he has already made three moves: since he arrived at the age of 22 in 2016 until 2018 he played for the Knicks, until 2020 in Charlotte and now in New Orleans.

A trip in which he has lined up his physique (he landed weighing 105 kilos and is now at 120) and in which he has accumulated 308 games, 46 as a starter: 15.3 minutes, 7.4 points and 5.9 rebounds per night.

Today, the best of the Eurobasket is almost invisible in the NBA.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on

Subscribe to continue reading

read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber