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Lyou Houston Rockets announced in the last hours the decision to send Usman Garuba to your linked team from the G League, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers with the objective that the Spanish international gained minutes and experience to return to the Houston franchise as soon as possible.
“Garuuuuuuuuba!” blows up the Rockets commentator with his triple
A decision that can be seen as a setback or as an opportunity both for the team and for a Garuba that needs to gain prominence to return to the Rockets with more force.
Is this trip common in the NBA?
It is not a strange measure in the NBA environment that take advantage of their linked teams to give minutes to players with little experience in the league such as Garuba or to players who return from long-term injuries so that they can pick up the rhythm of the game.
In fact, this season two of Garuba’s compatriots have already seen each other in the development league. Grizzlies rookie Santi Aldama shone with the Hustles with a double-double (13 + 10) in a match played against Mexico City Capitanes. Serge Ibaka, meanwhile, is taking advantage of his minutes on the court with the Agua Caliente Clippers. And that should be the mirror that the former Real Madrid player should look at.
Are there examples of success to look at?
During the matches that I play with the Vipers Garuba will continue to receive his salary from the Rockets ($ 2,353,320 this season) who have followed the policy that most teams follow and for which this was created Development League. A project that was born 20 years ago, in 2001, with the aim of creating a championship of linked teams for the development of players who could later reach the NBA and so that the franchises of the best league in the world can use that championship to train young players without minutes in the NBA as can be the case of Garuba.
In the NBA you already know Garuba: This was his spectacular cap in the summer league
The Spanish international is not the only passenger on a journey that players who are now stars in the NBA have already undertaken. It is the case of Rudy Gobert, three times Best Defender in the NBA and that in his first season the Jazz first team alternated (just over nine minutes on average) with the Bakersfield Jam with whom he averaged 14 points and 12 rebounds before returning to Utah for a month later.
Too Khris Middleton, brand new NBA champion with the Milwaukee Bucks and Olympic gold in the past Tokyo Games, made the round trip to the G League in his rookie season, when the Pistons decided to send him to the Fort Waine Mad Ants, where he played the minutes he did not play in Detroit. Years later Middleton became the first player with a past in the G League to become an all star.
Other illustrious names that have passed through the development league have been: Danny Green (three times NBA champion and current Sixers player), Paskal Siakam (Toronto Raptors), Hassan Whiteside (Utah Jazz), Seth Curry (Philadelphia 76ers) or Christian Wood (Houston Rockets).
Garuba has the opportunity to gain momentum to gain the trust of a Stephen Silas that he has barely used him in seven of the 14 games played by the Rockets who are the worst team in the NBA with just one win for 13 losses. The Real Madrid youth squad averages 1.7 points and 2.6 rebounds in 6.4 minutes per game and had his best performance in his last game (five points and six rebounds) before traveling to Edinburg, the home of the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, his new team.
