July 25, 2014

SAN JUAN (William Rosario's Somewhere in the Americas) - First week of April, last year. Basketball in the Americas had been shaken up by the sudden resignation of German Vaccaro, President of the Argentinean Basketball Confederation (CABB) since 2008. The official press release alluded to personal reasons and the fact that he could no longer dedicate 100 percent of his time and energy to his duties.

It was later known Vaccaro had been forced out by the leaders of the Golden Generation (Luis Scola, Manu Ginobili, Pablo Prigioni, Andres Nocioni and Carlos Delfino) who went to the Minister of Sport of the country and put it to him in very clear terms: "If Vaccaro keeps his seat as President, we won't only not play at the FIBA Basketball World Cup, but we will forever retire from the national team". Vaccaro was immediately dismissed, forced to resign as President.

The players, after being owed bonuses had been asking for an audit of the national federation for years and nothing had been done. They were not going to let another year go by without seeing concrete actions towards their requests and took a successful stand against Vaccaro. Successful to a point.

After Vaccaro was gone, there were two subsequent Presidents in three months and still there was no audit and no real change in the structure of the federation. So Scola, the captain spoke up - this time in a public forum - in a Diario Clarín interview stating that "this CABB does not move or motivate me. I do not want to be complicit in something so shady. That is my right. If I do not play the World Cup it will be because of horrendous management. And it will be a disappointment, because I've played for this national team for 15 years, and I love it. The situation has worsened because the internal structure has remained. I do not understand why they are so desperate for the chair of President. It was fierce, they moved without thinking about the project we wanted and our requests".

The rest of the team followed his lead on social media:

"The debt they have with us is not the priority. We speak up for the 200,000 national federation members. We want for everybody to be paid what they are owed. The laundromats, tourism agencies, employees, professionals. Nothing changed, only the President. This move has been planned for months, this is not new. We are at a breaking point. This is bigger than the game, this is for the health of Argentinean basketball," said Scola.

"At no time has this happened because of us wanting the best hotels or clothing. We want transparency. Pablo (Prigioni) is 37, I'll be 37 in a few days and for many of us this is our last championship, so we will not see the results of this. But we believe that this legacy can be much more important than the one we left on the court," said Ginobili.

It was a historic date. The players, aware of the value they had as active players, negotiated their presence in the national team with real actions and change, transformation in the basketball structure of their country.

And it worked. Three days later, then President Daniel Zanni resigned and the government intervened in the national federation assisted by FIBA. Scola and the guys (minus Ginobili, who was denied authorization to play by the San Antonio Spurs) played in the World Cup and CABB began its road towards reconstruction. (The audit was finally realized in November during government intervention and sure enough, the findings were disastrous with almost US $3 million in debt and money irregularities that range from deposits that never entered the federation, accounts in Hong Kong and personal shopping receipts from Hugo Boss, Sarkany and Victoria’s Secret all paid with corporate credit cards).

But this moment resounded far beyond Argentina and I believe we are seeing its real influences right now prior to this year's FIBA Americas Championship.

A switch has gone on and active players throughout the continent have become aware of the power they possess both in public opinion and with their participation or lack thereof in international tournaments. This has officially become a statement era, where players are fighting for what they believe in. The Golden Generation has once again led by example, this time off the court and players like Mexico's Gustavo Ayon, Venezuela's Greivis Vasquez, Dominican Republic's Jack Michael Martinez and Puerto Rico's Ricky Sanchez have taken a similar stand against federational structures looking for a change.

All of them most definitely have a right to speak up and bring forward their concerns. And I believe they are very courageous for doing so at the height of their careers, but let's not make the mistake of thinking they carry the same weight across the board.

Ayon wanted Valdeolmillos back and he got him; Martinez apparently just wanted to insult people (Al Horford and GM Eduardo Najri) and has now been extricated from the national team program; Greivis wants the national federation President to call him, to have more communication; and Sanchez wants less improvisation, real team unity and more respect for the players developed in the island (as opposed to those coming from the States to play in the national team).

Those are valid claims (well, not necessarily in the case of Martinez). But that's where they stay, in the "Make A Claim" department.

There are big differences with the actions taken by the Golden Generation that came to a climactic point during that July 25 2014 press conference. They went as a team and had concrete requests (audit, pay off debts).

I don't see that with these 2015 players. I see singular cases (no team behind them) and abstract demands.

There's a before and after that press conference from July of last year. Let's just hope that the awareness of power and attention it has awaken in players from other countries does not turn inward and becomes an "awareness of me", of the things they individually want. Let's hope it turns outward, to an "awareness of we", to the true importance of the health of the game in their respective countries. 

By the way, I have said this before but it fits this context and it has to be repeated: the Golden Generation needs to be inducted as a team into every basketball Hall of Fame. What they have done for the sport is without measure. Take this as another example.  

William Rosario

FIBA

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