Close your eyes and say the first name that comes to mind when asked about basketball. I think I wouldn’t miss much if I guess what, for example, Michael Jordan, Arvydas Sabonis, Pau Gasol or Fernando Martín would come out of their mouths. The heroes on a court. The legends that have taken over minutes of radio and television, and covers in the press. They are the world of hoops, baskets and caps. However, they are not your everything. Behind and in front of them are other great heroes tiptoeing past by the eyes of fans and the general public.
They are the ones who have created this game. those who thought what could basketball be, How far could this sport go?. They imagined the moon and reached for it. They are directors, geniuses, like Raimundo Saporta and Ernesto Segura de Luna. Minds ahead of their time that guided the future of this sport and that they have been recognized by Spanish basketball with their entry into this second promotion of the FEB Hall of Fame.
Without Raimundo Saporta, that Sephardi born in ancient Constantinople who found in Spain the place in the world that the world denied him, Real Madrid would not have become the great giant of the courts that it is. The ogre capable of competing face to face against the Soviet ‘archenemy’. In the devourer of some European Cups that were only in his head. And without Ernesto Segura de Luna, that lawyer who ended up in basketball institutions because his brother-in-law was the mayor of Barcelona (how is life), the National Team would not have made a niche against the great world powers, the USSR, the former Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece… until reaching 40 medals in 24 years at the head of the FEB. References without whom nothing would have been the same.