Why many guys come back to Argentina's basketball

BUENOS AIRES (Martin Seldes' Brave New World) - Federico Van Lacke has one of those faces that could be easier to find in an office or working for IT in any given company than in a basketball court.

However, he's a very good basketball player that will be taken as the example of what we want to say in this column.

We won't talk about politics but it's quite clear that South America is in a better position than ten years ago and some countries in Europe are struggling more than in the 90's.That could be one of the reasons that could explain why some good players (not the top guys) have decided to abandon Spain and Italy to come back to Argentina, just to mention an example.

Van Lacke started 21 of the 35 games of his ACB team in the 2011/2012 season. He didn't shine but after some years, he proved he was a good player for the Spanish league.

Before this season started, he had the chance to wait for a Spanish team to hire him. But, after 10 years, he decided to do differently.

At 32, Van Lacke will be one of many players to come back back to the Argentinean League. Actually, the guard will play in his country's first division for the first time in his career as he only played in the second division before he went to Spain.

"Many reasons made me take this decision," Van Lacke said. "The economical crisis in Spain, Argentinean League's improvements and I had a kid, which is something that made me think differently."

It's obvious that the Spanish League is better than the Argentinean one. Don't even think I'm comparing the two leagues. I'm just trying to show how Argentina is growing and how the League is trying to join the growth.

Diego García, Nicolás Gianella, Víctor Baldo, Javier Bulfoni, Patricio Prato and Franco Migliori are other examples of players that changed the ACB and the Lega for the Liga.

On Thursday's night, the office worker (Van Lacke) went to Peñarol's house, the Argentinean champion, and showed everyone his face hides his skills as he scored 12 points, grabbed eight rebounds and gave seven assists. Not bad for a comeback as Boca beat Peñarol 70-58 in the Liga's first game.

As many of you know, all that glitters is not gold. The Liga has good players because the clubs have some money. But...

The arrivals are far away from solving many other problems that are harder to deal with.

Just to mention some improvements the Liga should do in the following years, we can talk about the stadiums that are old, dark and don't count on air conditioning, we can say that most of the teams travel by bus from one city to another one -even long distances- and that it's hard to watch the league on TV.

In other words, the big debt for the Liga is the infrastructure.

We must celebrate every step forward but we must also be aware that the steps should be short and careful. Because the day we go on walking but we don't have a place to step on, we will fall down.

Martín Seldes

FIBA

FIBA’s columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA.

FIBA takes no responsibility and gives no guarantees, warranties or representations, implied or otherwise, for the content or accuracy of the content and opinion expressed in the above article.