Tiago Splitter (39) returns home. He does this as head of Paris Basketball operations, one of the revelations of the European and current basketball season. leader of the Euroleague with a record of eleven victories and five defeats. The Brazilian, trained in Baskonia and took his first steps in the ACB in Vitoria-Gasteiz, returns this Friday (8:30 p.m.) to the Basque capital, protagonist and proper name of the high-tension duel which will pit Vitorians and Parisians against each other. each other. against each other at the Buesa Arena.
[Consulta aquí la clasificación de la Euroliga 2024-2025]
His landing at Baskonia took place in the 2000-01 season, when the Vitorian entity, at the time TAU Cerámica, noticed it thanks to the “good eye” of one of the entity’s scouts: “It was a cadet tournament in Chile and Tiago played with the Brazilian team… He played very well, he was 15 years old, He was very young and already aimed high. His “height (between 2.07 m and 2.10 m) and his good education” serve as his letter of presentation and Splitter, supported by “a very well endowed head”, soon He became one of the players with the greatest projection nationally. “He came from a very educated family and knew what he wanted to do,” says Javi Buesa, friend of the Paris Basketball coach since puberty.
well, that Arriving at Baskonia “green and soft, very soft”, he did not hesitate to try his luck on loan to Bilbao Basket, at that time in LEF2, a category below Baskonia. His statistics and impact were immediate and the Brazilian, this time in Biscay and as man in blackaveraged 11 points, five rebounds and two blocks in his first months at Miribilla. “He had to wait two years to obtain dual nationality and play for Vitoria in ACB, That's why Bilbao Basket was so important to him… It was one of his first contacts with Spanish basketball. and I knew I had to do it well”, remember the coaches of the Gasteiztarra entity who accompanied that of Santa Catarina in its beginnings.
Besides his basic requirements (“his size, his footwork in the paint…he had a lot of potential”) and his way of being (“he was very educated, he knew what he had to do to get what he 'he wanted'), who they know best and emphasize one phrase over the others: “Playing in the NBA went from my dream to my goal”. Tiago Splitter said it in one of his first interviews in Spain, in an article that warned of his potential and, also, his main area of improvement: “For a 16-year-old boy to say that with this conviction This gives more or less an idea of their aspirations, their mentality… He was always different in that way, an exception. “I suffered a little physically, during indoor training where I found myself with my tongue hanging out.” It is precisely this ambition, worked with his father, devoted to the profession of lawyer, and his mother, a teacher, which allowed him to win a place, albeit with nuances, in the Baskonia first team during the season 2003-04.
Dual nationality and “endless, exhausting days”
During the 03-04 season, Splitter showed his face in the Baskonia first team and managed to add minutes only in the European competition. In ACB, as the Vitorian club exceeded the number of foreigners allowed, they had to wait one more season, until 04-05. “His parents instilled in him from a very young age the importance of also focusing on studies, of not leaving them aside, and he succeeded brilliantly,” they say of Corazonistas, where he studied for a year and trained his the group [grupo de amigos].
This academic year during which he faced training, classes and matches It was “exhausting, they were exhausting and endless days for everyone”: he got up at 7 a.m. to go to class until 1:05 p.m.; Then I did different exercises with weights in the gym before eating and returning to school from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.; an hour later, at 6:30 p.m., I returned to the gym to face a session lasting more than two hours who put the finishing touches on their day.
During his first years in Vitoria-Gasteiz he met Iñaki Iriarte, with whom he still maintains a relationship and whom, during his time in the NBA, he invited on several occasions to visit San Antonio. “He was like his second father, Tiago always loved him very much”adds his friends. The Vitorian coach, who rubbed shoulders with other promising young people like Pablo Prigioni, Ilimane Diop and Tadas Sedekerskis, spent “many hours with him”. [haciendo alusión a Splitter] and the relationship grew. He dedicated himself, for many years, “to working on the individual technique of the fellows”, as he himself admitted in an interview with Gasteiz today.
“The training with Iñaki was very useful to Tiago, who He matured very quickly in Vitoria. He knew how to make time for everything and was aware that it was important for him to have a group of friends with whom he could go out for drinks, eat out, etc. “, explains Javi Buesa. Two of the main “culprits” of the fact that the adaptation of the Brazilian interior happened on wheels and did not take too long were Pablo Prigioni, the “locker room sergeant”, and Scola, who “perfectly embodied what Splitter wanted to become.”
Alongside Tiago Splitter, who landed in Vitoria-Gasteiz in January 2000, Baskonia also incorporated Miguel Ángel Pichardo, The Dominican basketball promise who spent a large part of his career in Portugal, CB Valls and Baloncesto Badajoz, and Tiago Da Luz, “a Brazilian who did not succeed”. Nevertheless, The current Paris Basketball coach “was special for many things”: “His mentality has led him to achieve everything he has accomplished… Without being a coach, he is there.
“The best players I have coached have been Tiago Splitter and Pablo Laso”Iriarte added in the interview with Gasteiz today. Curiously, both will occupy the benches of the Buesa Arena this Friday, in the high-tension duel between Baskonia and Paris Basketball during a new day – the last of 2024 – of the highest continental competition. Furthermore, in the case of the Brazilian, His return to the Basque capital comes just months after Gasteiz's side retired his number, il 21which is already hanging from the ceiling of the Baskonist stronghold with that of other legends like Pablo Prigioni (5), Luis Scola (4), Sergi Vidal (9) o Igor Rakocevic (8).
