Woah. Slow down for a second.
We haven’t heard from former NC State basketball star Lorenzo Brown in while. And now he’s being dubbed a ‘basketball god” ? He has people calling him Spain’s version of Michael Jordan? What did we miss?
Here’s a quick recap of how Lorenzo Brown became a citizen of Spain and led them to the Eurobasket Championship.
Eurobasket is the European Basketball Championship. It’s the main international basketball competition held by FIBA and it’s huge. Superstars from all over the world compete for their counties and there is a lot of national pride that comes along with this championship.
So where does Lorenzo Brown, a kid just outside Atlanta, Georgia, fit in?
Zo has never lived Spain. He doesn’t have family from Spain, and he’s never even played for a team in Spain. However, Sergio Scariolo, who was filling out Spain’s roster was dealt a blow when Ricky Rubio (NBA star PG) suffered a serious ACL injury earlier this year. He didn’t have anyone that could fill Rubio’s shoes and was stuck. Then he had an idea.
Scariolo was an assistant coach for the Toronto Raptors in 2018, the same time Lorenzo Brown was with the Raptors. Scariolo loved Brown’s game so much that it was Brown he thought of for this opportunity.
For Brown to be able to compete, he’d have to become a citizen of Spain, but that wasn’t going to be an easy task seeing as he didn’t live there or have any ties to the country.
Scariolo had an idea. He went to the Spanish Basketball Association and explained how important Brown getting citizenship was. He requested for them to put in a request to the country for expedited citizenship under ‘exceptional circumstances.’ The exceptional circumstances being, it will help the country compete on a national stage.
The government OK’d the request and Zo was the new PG for Spain.
This normally wouldn’t be a huge deal, but Zo was a huge difference maker. In fact, for most of the tournament, he was Spain’s most valuable player. In fact, he was the first player to ever register a double-double (points/assists) in the EuroBasket gold medal game.
Overall, he put up 22.8pts and 8.3 assists and was pivotal in late-game situations, as he led Spain to the championship over France.
“Yes, that was my first objective right there. And we did it. I faced a lot of criticism for who knows what. But I feel like it’s a language barrier or country… I don’t know what was going on, but at the end of the day, we speak the same language out there on the court. It doesn’t matter what color you’re or where you’re from, we’re all brothers and humans. That speaks for itself right there, winning this gold medal.” Brown told Basketnews.com
Eurobasket was no cakewalk either. The tournament featured some of the NBA’s best talent, including Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece), Nikola Jokic (Serbia), Luka Doncic (Slovenia), and Rudy Gobert (France).
But Brown didn’t do it on his own. He was teamed up with Juancho Hernangomez (Finals MVP), who was the inspiration for the Netlfix move ‘Hustle’ with Adam Sandler. Hernangomez played Bo Cruz, a foreign player who was trying to make his way to the NBA. Sandler also chimed in after the win.
But Brown was right there with him, being named one of the All-Star 5 from the tournament.
His play has led some in Spain to call him ‘Spain’s version of Michael Jordan’, one of which was the countries biggest YouTube star.
So what’s next for Zo?
Well, it looks like he’s going to stick around in Spain and cash in on his recent success. What that looks like is still not set in stone, however, we’ll keep you updated with his next move and hopefully bring you an exclusive interview about his huge tournament.
This is great, Zo deserves to cash in. It’s been about 10 years since he left, and with the exception of the G League MVP a few years ago, he has been underappreciated.
Hope he makes the most of this moment in the spotlight and banks a bunch of Euros.