101 Greats of European Basketball

Vladimir Stankovic
bat, Ferrandiz, backed by manager Raimundo Saporta,
realized that Brabender could be an enormous addition
to the team. So they proposed to him the possibility of
getting a Spanish passport. Brabender accepted the offer,
and soon Spain gained a great player. The fact that
Brabender still lives in Spain today proves that this was
a case of true nationalization.
On May 10, 1969, Wayne Brabender made his debut
with the Spanish national team in Badalona against Cuba,
playing 90 seconds. A little later, playing against Belgium
in a EuroBasket qualifying tournament in Mataró,
Spain, he suffered a knee injury and had to be sidelined
for 10 months. But he persevered and returned to Real
Madrid and the national team. At the 1973 EuroBasket
in Barcelona, Brabender helped Spain win a silver medal,
the country’s first in men’s basketball since another
a silver at the original EuroBasket, back in 1935 in Geneva.
In that 1973 title game, Spain fell to Yugoslavia, who
won its first continental title, 67-78. But Brabender’s 20
points – a little over his 19.3 average in the tourney –
confirmed that Spain had a great new star.
I saw Wayne Brabender countless times on TV, but
I think the first time I saw him live was at the 1975 EuroBasket
in Belgrade. I saw him also two years later in
Belgium and again at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow,
where Spain finished fourth. I still remember his incredible
game of 30 points against Yugoslavia, the future
Olympic champ, who struggled but won 95-91. Chicho
Sibilio added 23 points for Spain while on the other side
there was the great duo of Dragan Kicanovic (25 points)
and Drazen Dalipagic (24).
Non-stop titles
Brabender played 190 games with the Spanish
national team, but it was Real Madrid who took more
advantage of his qualities. During his 16 years with Los
Blancos – which looks like an eternity today, when players
change clubs so often – he won 13 Spanish Leagues
(10 of them in a row, from 1968 to 1977), seven Spanish
Cups, three Intercontinental Cups (1976, 1977 and
1978, each time scoring more than 20 points in the
final), and four EuroLeagues. Real Madrid was, without
a doubt, the strongest team in Spain back then, and it
didn’t need much to win national titles. But to compete
with Ignis Varese, CSKA Moscow or Maccabi Tel Aviv, the
latter of which was starting to show great ambitions in
the early 1970s, Real Madrid needed a great player like
Brabender.
Real Madrid’s first European title with him on the
team came in 1968 in Lyon, France against Spartak Brno
of Czechoslovakia, with a 98-95 final-game victory
thanks to 26 points from Aiken and 22 from Brabender.
The next European crown would arrive on April 11,
1974, in Nantes against Varese in a very balanced game
that finished 84-82. Brabender once again scored 22
points, Walter Szczerbiak and Luyk had 14 each, while
on the other side, the “magnificent trio” of Dino Meneghin
(25), Bob Morse (24) and Manuel Raga (17) kept
hopes alive for their team until the final moment.
Four years later, in 1978, the same rivals met again in
the Munich final. Real Madrid won 75-67 with 26 points
by Szczerbiak and 16 by Brabender. His last European
title was on May 27, 1980, in Berlin as Madrid defeated
Maccabi 89-85 behind 27 points by Rafa Rullan and 12
by Brabender.
He played at Real Madrid until the end of the
1982-83 season and put an end to his brilliant career
with Caja Madrid, playing two more seasons. When
Brabender retired in 1985 he was 39-and-a-half years
old. His Spanish League stats hardly reflect the impact
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