Going Against Conventions: Luca Garza’s Journey

By the time Luca Garza was in ninth grade he had already risen to a height of 2.01 m, but only a year later managed to drown for the first time in his life. Since then, the University of Iowa chin today (2.11) has become one of the hottest names in college basketball, and only if something really weird happens will he not be named player of the season.

Garza is the antithesis of a modern American chin. He is clumsy, looks heavy, far from athletic, and is still considered the most dominant player in colleges since Shaquille O’Neal played in 1991 at Louisiana State. In the 40-minute index, he scores 34.8 points, 0.3 points less than Shaquille and 0.8 points more than Steph Kerry, who was formidable during his time at Little Davidson College and ranked third.

His whole world and the whole world of his family is basketball. His father Frank played at Idaho College, his grandfather at the University of Hawaii, but with all due respect to them, the family side that excelled at playing with the orange ball is that of his mother Silla, a Bosnian who played professional team basketball in Europe, as well as her twin sister. His uncle, Tauman Alibgovic, played with Gary Peyton at Oregon State and then made a fine career for the Slovenian national team. His two cousins ​​play in Italy. If that wasn’t enough, his maternal grandfather was a football goalkeeper in the Austrian Strum Graz, and managed to play in the Champions League.

“He’s half a Yugoslav. People forget that some of the best players in the history of the game came from there,” his father Frank said in one of his interviews last year in the United States. He inherited the height from the parents, of course (the father rises to a height of 2.01 m, the mother 1.82).

Garza is considered a junkie of watching basketball games and video analysis. As a kid, he used to put cassettes from the big games of Karim Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin McHale, Hakim Olajuan and Jack Sikma into his home video device – and then immediately go out on the field and mimic their movements. “There’s always something you can improve and add to your game. From the day I remember myself I wanted to learn and get better,” he said.

After a reasonable first two seasons in the Iowa uniform in which he averaged 12.5 points and 5.5 rebounds, Garza exploded in his third season with 23.9 points and 9.8 rebounds. It did not happen by chance. Towards the end of his second season he underwent ankle surgery and because he did not train he gained 120 kg. In the summer he flew to Hawaii and trained with his father’s coach during his time in college, Bill Retombo. In the month he lost 11 kg and improved his speed and agility. drastically.

Another big drama that happened in his life was between his first and second season in Iowa when a tumor was discovered on his spleen measuring 20 centimeters and weighing 5 kilograms. “People do not understand what he went through. We did not think about basketball at all, we thought about it having to live. “We just hoped it would survive. It’s a miracle,” Frank said.

The father outlines the path in his son’s career, but he does not do it alone. “Building an actor requires a group of consultants and managers around him – an entire village.” The village the father is talking about also includes Chuck Drissl, his son’s high school coach, Retombo who has since passed away, and of course the chain of basketball players on both sides of the family.

This season Garza’s books have jumped even higher. He managed to score 41 points against the University of Southern, 35 against Westburn Illinois, 34 in the derby over Iowa State, 33 and 32 in two games against Minnesota and 30 against the powerful Gonzaga. So it’s no wonder the NBA started talking about it.

Garza’s orbit is different in the current stellar landscape that befalls the world. If in the past playing three or four seasons in colleges was a must before a draft pick, today the big talents play at best one season in college before they put themselves up for a draft pick, or alternatively spend a season abroad, like for example Amalo Ball, then move on to the best league in the world .

So his decision to complete four seasons in college is definitely surprising, and even quite refreshing. It could also very well be that he wanted to show the scouts from the best league in the world who were skeptical about his ability to fit into one of the teams, which they were wrong about.

In addition to the numbers that have jumped from season to season in Iowa, Garza has improved his game in an extraordinary way. A player who scores 29 percent off the arc in his second season has climbed to 45 percent this season (three shots on average). Add to that a fine post-game (losing only 9 percent of the balls he gets this season with his back to the basket), surprising ability to run the court and lethal quality in pick-and-roll as a blocker and as a finisher, and you get a monster in colleges.

And yet, despite everything, the NBA is still not enthusiastic, and the fact that in most predictions for the upcoming draft his name does not appear at all, even though he is expected to be selected as the player of the season in college. So why is this happening? Mainly due to his defensive abilities, lack of athleticism and agility of feet, which despite the improvement is still not good enough.

His defensive play in pick-and-roll is not good at the moment, he is having a hard time keeping guards in substitutions, and on the other hand he is not returning fast enough to his player. In addition, the Scouts claim that once he is on the floor the team he will play for will have to slow down its pace of play, unlike what has been happening in recent years in the NBA where the number of passers-by only goes up and up from season to season. The claim is that because of him Iowa plays slow basketball and relies on back-to-back play for his basket (getting 50 percent of his points from the post), which can not happen in pros.

On the other hand, those who support him claim that with the exception of Advayo, Rudy Guber and Anthony Davis, there are no really high-ranking players who guard so well in the NBA, and there is no reason why he should not keep up with Nikola Jukic, Joseph Norkic or Mark Gasol (former defender of the season) , Which are reminiscent of their body dimensions. The three cover for lack of athleticism with nimble hands, timing and experience.

“If you’re not good enough defensively in the NBA, you have to be something special on offense in the minutes you get,” said ESPN senior draft commentator Mike Schmitz. “Considering that Garza will have a hard time improving his speed and agility, he will have to show other qualities like off-archery, pitch spacing and rebound dominance.”

By the way, recently they made a comparison between the best chins that have been in colleges in the last 20 years in terms of quality index (PER), and Garza is ranked first before all in the gap (41.6). In second place is Kelly Olinik (37), who is playing this season in Miami, and third is Mike Muscala (36.3) from Oklahoma City.

He himself is confident in his abilities: “I have the confidence that I can score on any defensive player. That’s the mentality I have. I’ve always worked on my game, and I have a lot of moves I can pull out every time.”

It seems that at the end of the NBA teams will understand that this is not another player, and the pre-draft training he will do will bounce his shares and he will be selected, maybe even in the first round. And if not, the big teams in Europe will be very happy to have such a quality player.