This Wednesday, the Cordoba Leandro Bolmaro became the youngest Argentine basketball player to make his NBA debut, with 21 years, one month and nine days, and the fifteenth national player to officially play in the most important league in the world with the jersey of the Minnesota Timberwolves, who defeated the Houston Rockets Rockets 124-106, on the opening day of the Western Conference.
Bolmaro’s entry to the Target Center court occurred when there were exactly 4 minutes and 40 seconds left until the end of the game and in that period converted his first two points in the NBA through free throws, in addition to missing a field goal.
Bolmaro was born on September 11, 2000 in the Cordoba town of Las Varillas, the same one that Fabricio Oberto hails from, one of the 14 Argentines who had already played in the NBA and who became champion with San Antonio Spurs in 2007.
So far, the youngest Argentine to play in the NBA was the Santa Fe and also a member of the national team, Carlos Delfino, who debuted at the Detroit Pistons on November 4, 2004 at 22 years and 67 days (he was born on August 29, 1982).
The road from Bolmaro to Minesotta
The 2.03-meter-tall Cordovan trained at the Almafuerte de Las Varillas club and made the leap to the National League at the age of 16, in 2017, when he joined BahÃa Basket. A year later he arrived in Europe to join Barcelona, ​​from Spain, at the age of 17. Last year, Bolmaro had been drafted by the New York Knicks in 23rd place before releasing him to Minnesota.
Once in the team, the Cordoba met his countryman Pablo Prigioni, assistant coach of the team, Chris Finch. Prigioni was the oldest Argentine to make his NBA debut, when he did so with the New York Knicks in 2012, at 35 years and 169 days.
The other Argentines in the NBA
This season Bolmaro also has two compatriots competing in their second NBA seasons, such the cases of the also Cordoba and base of Denver Nuggets, Facundo Campazzo, and the Oklahoma City Thunder forward from Santiago, Gabriel Deck, who also played Wednesday night for their respective teams.
.