101 Greats of European Basketball

er, 78-76, but the title stayed in Spain. The duo formed
by Oberto (13 points, 8 rebounds) and Tomasevic (28
points, 11 rebounds and MVP honors) shined again.
As EuroCup champ, Valencia earned the right to
play in the EuroLeague the following season, making its
debut in the top European competition. The team had
a good season and reached the Top 16 but missed a
Final Four appearance. Valencia was tied with Maccabi
Tel Aviv in their Top 16 group with a 4-2 record but lost
the tiebreaker to reach the Final Four. Maccabi had won
their first game in Valencia by a 74-89 score, and then
Valencia suffered a 20-0 defeat in the rematch for refusing
to travel to Tel Aviv.
In the summer of 2004, Argentina soared in the
Athens Olympics. The key game was in the semifinals
against the USA. Argentina, led by Ginobili with 29
points, won 89-81. In the final against Italy, the team had
no problems and cruised 84-69 to claim the gold medal,
even though Oberto had to miss the game due to injury.
The ring in San Antonio
In the summer of 2005, Oberto decided to leave
Valencia and try his luck in the NBA. He left behind 219
games in the Spanish League, with averages of 11.0
points, 5.8 rebounds and 1.7 assists. At 31 years old, he
became the San Antonio Spurs’ oldest rookie ever, but
head coach Gregg Popovich trusted Oberto. His role
was helping the second team and he delivered. In the
2006-07 season, in the first two games of the Western
Conference Finals, he played 31 minutes and averaged
14.0 points, way above his usual numbers, which were
between 4 and 5 points. The Spurs would go on to win
the title, Oberto’s crowning moment in five NBA seasons.
At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Oberto won his
second medal, a bronze, after an 87-75 win over Lithuania.
After four years in San Antonio, where he played
alongside his friend Ginobili, he played one season in
Washington and a few games of another in Portland.
Oberto then suffered some heart problems and had to
stop playing. In November of 2011, he announced his
retirement. He had played 336 regular season games
in the NBA (3.2 points and 3.5 boards) and 46 playoff
games (4.2 points and 3.9 rebounds).
When he had recovered, Oberto played once more
with his first club, Atenas Cordoba, and even with the
national team in the pre-Olympic tournament of 2012
in Mar del Plata.
Alejandro Perez pointed out that Oberto had traveled
to the 1993 World Cup in Toronto as the 13th player,
not to play, but to gain valuable experience early in
his career. I remember Mirko Novosel having done the
same thing 20 years earlier, with Mirza Delibasic in the
World Cup in Puerto Rico.
“I am the result of hard work. I don’t have the talent.
Everything I ever did was because I practiced hard. I
practiced in my career what others would need three
lives for. That’s the number of hours I spent in the gym,”
Oberto said.
Once retired for good, Oberto lived in Cordoba and
worked as a music journalist with his own radio show,
something he had done for fun in Valencia. Oberto also
appeared on a TV show doing exclusive interviews with
well-known people from Ginobili to Eva Longoria. He
also owned a winery with a friend that produced some
400,000 bottles a year. He plays guitar, enjoys rock and
roll and spending time with his daughter. He once said:
“I prefer that Wikipedia says about me that I was a better
person than a player.”
Why not both? The great player he was and the great
person he is.
101 greats of european basketball
Fabricio Oberto
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