Colombia is turning to see basketball. Players like Braian Angola and Jaime Echenique, who recently trained with NBA teams seeking a place in the best league in the world, the first with the Washington Wizards in 2021, and the second with the Orlando Magic in 2018, caught the attention of the sports lovers across the country.
However, the best seems to be yet to come for this discipline. There are several young Creole basketball players who are playing abroad, even with full sports scholarships.
There is a rather peculiar case. A story worthy of admiration, which is named Edwin Niebles, a boy of only 16 years old, but 2.12 meters tall, who is playing for the BAXI Manresa team, set in the city of the same name, province of Barcelona, part of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia, in Spain.
The quintet where the Barranquilla belongs to the ACB league, considered the second best in the world after the NBA. Of course, Edwin shows his talent in the lower categories, specifically in preferred A, for players not older than 18 years.
But we go by part. You have to talk about where it all started, in Barrio 7 de Abril, in the southwest of Barranquilla, where Edwin grew up and where he argued with his mother and grandparents because he did not want to practice basketball.
Just as they read it. The tall young man, guided since he was a child by his grandfather José Herrera, began to play soccer “because we are in Colombia and here we play soccer”, in his own words, in conversation with EL HERALDO.
“My grandfather was always my coach, since I was little he encouraged me to play sports. When it was seeing that he was very tall for my age, we decided not to continue with football, “he added.
Weeks later, Edwin said, at the Jesús Maestro School, they invited him to play handball. “It went very well for me, in just one year I came to represent the school at the municipal level, we were champions and I won the scorer’s trophy,” Niebles said.
But as he gained height, his grandfather and his teachers recommended that he play basketball. But, “Basketball? Where? ”He asked himself at the time, being just a child. That was when he was entrusted to Professor Harold Hoyos, from the Barranquilla Sharks School.
“I started playing with Sharks when I was 14 years old, but at first I did not like it at all. The training sessions were very strong, I was late and tired to my house. I practiced in the north and then I had to take Transmetro to my house. I would tell them to my mother and my grandfather who did not want to continue practicing basketball, even several times I did not go to training, “said Edwin, while he laughed remembering anecdotes and mentioned that at that time” he was not that tall “, he was 1.90 meters tall.
After a hard adaptation, encouraged by his teacher, his grandfather and his mother, so that he did not stop practicing, he improved and quickly became the center of attention in the school, so much so that he began to be summoned by the Atlantic Selection in his category and for the national team.
It was there that he got the opportunity to be seen by international talent scouts, mainly from the United States, who came with a proposal in hand offering full scholarships.
Interestingly, it was not the Americans who convinced the Atlantic. And much more curious is the way in which he found the offer of a scholarship to go to Spain.
“During a South American in the sub 14 category, I couldn’t go because I joined the training sessions for the Colombian National Team late. However, the teachers convinced the Spanish observers present at the tournament to come and see me, ”he said.
After several months demonstrating his talent in front of the eyes of the Iberians, where the first contact was through a message on Instagram, everything was finally agreed, but not before making the decision with his family.
“We sat at home one day, we analyzed the proposals between my grandparents, my mother and Professor Harold, what was the best option, what was convenient for my development and my future basketball. We decided that the offer to come to Spain was the right one. better, “he said.
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