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This guy seems true. I miss him though I respect Spurs FO decision.
Oct. 26, 2007, 1:15AM
Rockets benefit from Scola's waiting game on Spurs
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/5247334.html
By JONATHAN FEIGEN Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Luis Scola knew he would play in San Antonio eventually, and tonight he will. Yet, as are so often the ways of fate, it will not be as he imagined.
He had seen himself next to Tim Duncan, taking passes from Tony Parker, playing with his friends and teammates on the Argentina national team, Manu Ginobili and Fabricio Oberto.
He had watched the playoffs and saw the Spurs win and celebrate championships and thought of them as his team. Through five years of imagining and waiting, sometimes negotiating, he assumed his career would eventually reach San Antonio. He just never saw himself on the other team.
"I wanted to play there," said Scola, the Spurs' 2002 second-round pick who will face them tonight in the Rockets' final preseason game. "It was hard, because I was under contract. Of course, I was frustrated because I wanted to be there, but I understood the situation. There was nothing I could do but keep working, so that's what I did."
There was no question the wait grew tiresome, the rhetoric testy. By last summer, when the Spurs were unable to find a satisfactory trade of his rights or give an offer sufficient to get him to pay his buyout and leave Tau Ceramica of the Spanish league, one of his international agents offered the comment that would come to represent the impasse.
"In the country of liberty, Luis is a prisoner," Claudio Villanueva told Argentine newspaper La Nación. "The Spurs do not utilize him, neither do they want to yield him to another team, and they impede him to play in the NBA."
Small matter of Duncan
With Duncan manning Scola's position, the Spurs did not have the Rockets' need for Scola. But with Scola facing a deadline to let Tau know his intentions and with a deal to Cleveland falling through, the Spurs dealt the rights to Scola, along with Jackie Butler, for Vassilis Spanoulis, a 2009 second-round pick and cash.
For five years, part of him was in San Antonio, always keeping tabs on the team he thought he'd join.
"I have friends there," Scola said. "I still follow them, even though I'm on the other side on the Rockets. I enjoyed seeing them those years. I was happy when they won. Now it's a little bit different because I play for the Rockets. But I always followed them.
"I think I would have followed them anyway. I have nothing but good feelings for them."
With his first NBA preseason wrapping up, he has seemed to have been worth the wait. He has struggled at times with NBA officiating and the rules that are different or more emphasized (prohibiting defensive three seconds, hand checks and moving screens) than in FIBA. But he also has been a fine fit in the Rockets' movement-based offense next to Yao Ming.
Tonight would seem to be an opportunity to demonstrate that in a city that had heard about him the past five years.
""All I want to do is make Rockets people happy," Scola said. "This is only one game. We have 82 games to play. We have to play everybody else. My biggest challenge now is to take all the confidence the Rockets gave to me and give back. That's what my focus is on now. I don't think I have to go there to try to prove anything to anybody."
Waiting game ends
He was not sure if he would have that sort of perspective five years ago, or seven years ago when he began his professional career. But in all those years waiting and imagining, there was time to mature, too.
"Seven years is a lot, not only in basketball, but in life," Scola said.
It is long enough to find that sometimes life differs from expectations. Sometimes it exceeds them.
"I love basketball and the NBA was my dream," Scola said. "I used to dream I was playing for them and being a part of the success they had. I dreamed that, but I am very happy now."
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!? (all is said?)
Tonight we'll start paying for letting Scola go to a division rival for nothing... book it!
Nothing more needs to be said.
he won;t score tonight... Matt Bonner will outplay him! book it!
I like it when ChumpDumper comes into a thread and gets right to the point.
Scola's been an ass in every interview given since the day he was drafted up until he wound up on the Rockets, ditto his agent...now he's all of a sudden Mr. Congeniality and champion of the human spirit...
Horse ...he whined the night we drafted him, he whined on National TV during the Olympics...he whined and ed and pissed and moaned and whine.
And everytime someone calls him on it you get 15 million Argies and dumbasses piling on...but the fact is, he's been an ass...and he's not on the Spurs for a reason...a reason in addition to his limited NBA playing ability. And if it was about money and he's such a great player...he'd be here and Bonner and or Oberto wouldn't.
GTF over it or take it to ClutchCity.net where you now belong...bandwaggoning player over the team trash.
totally different whenever you actually ask him a question.I like it when ChumpDumper comes into a thread and gets right to the point.
Scola is the !
You can't blame Scola, especially after the contract he signed. If the Spurs really wanted him he'd be in the Silver & Black. Time will tell if that was a wise decision.
We're rolling with what we have now. Udoka may very well be the coup of the summer (moreso than Scola for the Rockets). Perhaps Darius will be another.
Could you post some of those times he acted like an ass? or are you just talking out of yours?
P.S. typical idiot whottt comment: "And everytime someone calls him on it you get 15 million Argies and dumbasses piling on" Go yourself very much...
Cue the "homer" and "Manumaniac hates America" bull retorts...
hahahaah
I rememeber Scola whining about being drafted in the second round on draft night.
I think I remember him whining about Buford calling him asking him why as a power forward he was such a ty ass rebounder.
I mean the er averaged 4 a game in the EUROS!!
Buford's complaining seems to have worked. Scola has been a very good rebounder so far in the NBA.
Scola is with the Rockets right now.......
As long as he's facing the Spurs' 12 through 16th guys. Scola's fairly underwhelming and downright putrid defensively.
Yeah against D Leaguers hes a rebounding machine.Buford's complaining seems to have worked. Scola has been a very good rebounder so far in the NBA.
Bonner was just as good, at times better than Scola.
Yikes
I don't know if thats good for Bonner or bad for Scola.
man, could you be more of an ass?
what the does Galtieri have to do with me?
weak whottt, very weak
Whottt has his greatness moments at times.
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