MADRID — Thursday night, the people of Spain will see four of the country's five NBA players playing for their pro teams in Madrid's sleek, modern and NBA-ready arena.
Point guard Jose Calderon and power forward Jorge Garbajosa are the Toronto Raptors' two Spanish stars. Pau Gasol and Juan Carlos Navarro of the Memphis Grizzlies fill out the foursome. Somewhere, the Portland Trail Blazers' Sergio Rodriguez will be feeling lonely.
The Raptors pair will be feted everywhere in the next two days, the climax coming tomorrow in a rare doubleheader when the Raptors play Real Madrid after the Grizzlies meet MMT Estudiantes.
But the game will showcase more than pomp and circumstance and nationalism. It will also show off a friendship.
Jose Calderon in action against the Celtics during the recent preseason game in Rome. (Giampiero Sposito/Reuters)
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Calderon and Garbajosa are friends for life. Or at least, nearly for a lifetime.
"We met when I was 13 years old," Calderon says. "I signed for Tau [Spanish powerhouse club Tau Vittoria]. He signed the year before. He was 16 or 17 at that time. We were in the same situation, without our parents in another city, and I'm like 700 kilometres from home and he's from Madrid, 400 kilometres from home, and we have to live with other guys the same age.
"There were seven or eight guys like us and we kind of went together everywhere," he says.
Calderon was a member of that talented group of Spanish players, a group that signalled the country's international triumphs with age-group successes all the way through. Garbajosa was the big brother; a tradesman in a group of basketball artists.
That they bonded is proof that being the same isn't the same as being friends.
At 6 foot 9 inches and 245 pounds, with his standard stubble ("I shave once a month, if it's necessary or not") and shaggy hair, Garbajosa affects a craggy, immovable wall. He's playing this season on a leg that's technically still broken. He's been advised by doctors to have surgery, but has advised the doctors that there will be no surgery. His pain threshold is legendary.
At 6 foot 3 and 200 pounds, with his neatly trimmed hair, fine features and ritualistic and energetic encouragement of teammates, fans, coaches, referees and everything else on the basketball court, Calderon, 26, resembles a friendly, earnest, puppy. A veritable poet compared with Garbajosa, 29, the stoic.
But Garbajosa says, without qualification or irony, that Calderon is his "basketball soulmate."
And it was Calderon's enthusiasm and encouragement — the young dog teaching the old dog — that helped persuade Garbajosa to leave his successful European career last year to try his luck in the uncertain world of the NBA.
But friendship works both ways. With Garbajosa in the Raptors' fold, even though technically a rookie, a new Calderon emerged in his second season.
With Garbajosa around, Calderon's unvarnished enthusiasm had a context and a history. He could be himself and his play reflected his newfound comfort zone. He responded with a brilliant season.
Their friendship extends beyond the basketball court. They live in the same Toronto building and when Calderon went down with a scary-looking back injury in December, Garbajosa accompanied him to the hospital. Their wives kept each other company when their husbands were on road trips.
And when Garbajosa went down in a heap of pain, his left leg mangled, after a collision in Boston, Calderon was there for his friend. He visited him in hospital, at his apartment and most important, made him feel part of the Spanish national team this summer when Garbajosa was spending six hours a day on his own, trying to make his leg heal via the force of his considerable will.
"He would just call me and visit me, ask how it was going, tell me what the team was doing," Garbajosa says. "He's an amazing guy."
Last night, Calderon was the host of a team dinner to introduce all of his friends to the wonders of Spanish cuisine, with Garbajosa riding shotgun.
They've already shown their teammates much, much more.
