- Basketball Capitals
Cities in Focus - Madrid
Jeff Taylor
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"From Madrid to heaven" is a famous saying in Spain.
And it's been true for basketball fans in the capital city because they're often in the clouds after watching great players win tremendous battles in domestic and European competition. It doesn´t take much to fall in love with Madrid.
From the Prado Museum to the Reina Sofia Art Gallery, one can admire works of the best painters to have hailed from the country.
The simplest of pleasures can be enjoyed by walking down the tree-lined avenues of Madrid and looking at its historic buildings, or having a hot chocolate with churros at the Plaza Mayor. Good eating is guaranteed in Madrid, home to some of the finest restaurants on the old continent.
Sport is a huge part of the city´s life.
With three Spanish Liga Endesa clubs in the Madrid region, basketball often takes center stage. Madrid has the Estudiantes and Fuenlabrada teams, but when it comes to tradition, Real Madrid reigns supreme.
Over the years, international basketball icons like Arvydas Sabonis and the late Drazen Petrovic have worn the Real shirt.
Both are in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Pedro Ferrandiz, Lolo Sainz and Zeljko Obradovic have been three of its coaching greats. Real has celebrated Euroleague title triumphs on eight occasions, the last in the 1994-95 campaign when Sabonis was its most valuable player.
The Madrid stop of our Basketball Capitals features premières Tuesday 14/5
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Among the Spanish greats to wear the Real shirt was the late Fernando Martin, the first from the country to compete in the NBA.
Martin played for the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1986-87 season but spent the majority of his professional career with Real from 1981-86 and 1987-89.
After he died in a road accident in 1989 at just 27 years of age, Real retired his No. 10 shirt. When Spain´s Rudy Fernandez was on the books of Portland back in 2009, he paid tribute to the Madrid legend by wearing a Blazers jersey with Martin's name on it during the Dunking Contest of the NBA All-Star Weekend.
Fernandez turned down the chance to remain in the NBA and signed for Real last summer and has been a major factor in their impressive 2012-13 season, averaging around 13 points for Spain's league leaders.
In the Turkish Airlines Euroleague, Fernandez has poured in 14 points per game.
Real are so talented, however, that Fernandez is not always the headline name.
The team also has the dynamic playmaker Sergio Rodriguez, also a former NBA player, and Spaniards Sergio Llull and Felipe Reyes.
One of the most exciting young talents in Europe on the roster is 22-year-old Nikola Mirotic, a 6-10 forward.
Shooting guard Jaycee Carroll, an American who played at Utah State from 2004-08, former Duke guard Martynas Pocius of Lithuania and Slovenian center Mirza Begic are in the squad. Real play at the Palacio de Deportes, which has a seating capacity of 15,000.
A big venue is needed for a club that has captured a Spanish record 30 league crowns and 23 times lifted the Copa del Rey.
The outfit always gives players to Spain's national team, the winners of the 2006 World Championship, 2009 and '11 European Championships and silver medalists at the last two Olympics.
Madrid will host some of the top games at next year's FIBA Basketball World Cup, which promises to be an extravaganza for lovers of the sport.
Long before then, however, Real Madrid will attempt write an another triumphant chapter in its rich history.
Real will be hoping to clinch another Euroleague crown and celebrate the achievement at the Cibeles Fountain.
Basketball Capitals is a new ESPN documentary series profiling the passion for basketball within the world's most iconic cities. The four-part series will premiere in May across ESPN in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
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