“I’m excited that compare me to Pau Gasol, but you have to be realistic“, confessed Izán Almansa (Murcia, 2005) after being MVP of the last U-17 World Cup on the Costa del Sol. Realistic. Izan Almansa is the best player on the U-19 World Cup world champion team. Of the renamed ‘Dream Team’ Spain after beating France and being crowned as the ‘kings among the little ones’. Almansa dominated, imposed his style and evidence that he is right.
Because now it is easy to speak well of an interior that breaks the rules of Spanish basketball. It is not excessively large, nor heavy, nor perhaps it responded to what the Pau or Marc Gasol were. He is agile, strong and knows how to dominate the entire area. But that, when he changed the Real Madrid academy, the best training in Europe, for an American academy it didn’t look like it.
Almansa was a good project of the Ciudad Real Madrid who decided to jump to the Overtime Elite. What is most glittering, the floor: 100,000 dollars. And some godparents led by Pau Gasol. The one with the comparison, the legend. “I went because they promised me an individual technical improvement without stopping playing as a team,” he confessed to the ‘Sporting News Spain’ portal. And right, no doubt. He surpassed 9 points and 8 rebounds in the United States, he changed the mold.
The academy that took the Thompson brothers and launched them into the top-5 of the Draft made Izan go to the G League. With a combine alongside the top two guys from the upcoming rookie class, Matas Buzelis and Rob Holland. All take the next step: go to the NBA. Nobody, for the moment, lowers him from the top-15 of the next edition of the night of the rookies. Almansa play in the best basketball league in the worldeither.
A World Cup to elevate him
And with the Selection… scares. Almansa is the leader, tournament after tournament, of the generation in Spain that he accompanies. He doesn’t seem to have a strong character, dominates on the field. He prevails on the boards, he is capable of starting from any position. And without having to repeat his name ad nauseam, he marks the differences in the annotation.
U19 World Cup Final Spain 73-69 France
A player of the new basketball. The one that blurs the role of the interior. Almansa has time to become different, unique. As good a defender as anyone and an attacking prodigy. Above the hoop, with its hooks, in the position of the feet… It has no known ceiling yet.
In Debrecen broke the rules. All the passes fell before his power and difference. France, the last, on two occasions, to crown his figure as the great exponent. The ‘Dream Team’ Spain is champion… Almansa is its king. Welcome to the future.
