The absurdity of Thomas Heurtel’s non-signing for Barcelona | Basketball | Sports

A bomb has exploded in Barcelona’s hands and his name is Thomas Heurtel. The story is bizarre. Nico Laprovittola tears his cruciate ligament, misses the entire season and Barcelona signs Raúl Neto as a substitute, who only plays eight minutes before that because he is chaining one injury with another. In need of a point guard and in the middle of a crisis of results, Barça negotiates with the Frenchman Heurtel, who at 35 years old had been without a team since November after his last season, the Shenzen Leopards of the Chinese league. Heurtel? Yes, the same player who in the middle of the pandemic because he found out that he intended to go to Madrid. The same one who this Friday morning landed in Barcelona with his family from China and who said he was very happy to return, who considered the signing of an agreement sealed that will never turn black on white because the club, faced with the anger of a fan who does not want that return, turns back and knocks down the operation. The same one who hours later, in the afternoon in a hotel in Barcelona, ​​breaks out and tells everything with his agent, David Carro.

“I feel like they have laughed at me. One more time. The first time was when they left me in Istanbul and now again, and with my children. “It’s a huge lack of respect,” says Heurtel, with a serious face, alongside a representative who points to Josep Cubells, director responsible for the Barça basketball section. “Last Sunday, Barça contacted us. On Monday, Thomas receives another offer from a Euroleague team. Barça tells us to stop that and on Tuesday a conversion with Peñarroya was closed [Joan, el entrenador] and they buy us the flight. On Wednesday an appointment is made for a medical check-up and number 3 is chosen. We have an agreed contract until the end of the season. They already knew the impact that the signing was going to have, but they told us that there was no problem, the green light. Cubells stands up for the president, he gave me his word. Then, when Thomas is already on the plane, they tell me it can’t be done. Your word is worthless. “We reserve the right to take legal action.” “I came with great enthusiasm and I landed here and received this news,” assumes Heurtel, who in the morning said he felt “very happy to return.”

The French point guard, a wayward genius, played at the Palau between 2017 and 2021. His crowning achievement was the 2018 and 2019 Cup titles adorned with the tournament’s MVP. Everything broke in December 2020 when, during the pandemic, after playing against Efes, because Heurtel was negotiating with Madrid. The coach, and a great supporter of this decision, was Saras Jasikevicius. “The club didn’t leave me there, a person left me who scared everyone,” Heurtel said this Friday about the Lithuanian coach. Nacho Rodríguez, then the sports director, was against this measure.

Heurtel would end up being fired in January 2021 and, after a brief spell at Asvel, he arrived at Madrid. He told this newspaper. He only wore white for one season, separated in April 2022 by Pablo Laso, along with Trey Thompkins, for disciplinary reasons, before playing against Panathinaikos. “We went out and I destroyed everything,” the Frenchman confessed.

Controversy has accompanied him in recent years. After Spain, he signed for Zenit Saint Petersburg and the French federation stopped calling him, and he was left without the Paris Games, for joining a Russian team during the conflict with Ukraine. His career seemed to be coming to an end at that last stop in China. Until the Barça club called him, and once again his story with Barcelona ended in an airport.