When on July 10, 2022, Martín Carpena’s horn rumbled to end the U-17 World Cup, thousands of basketball fans asked the same question: who was that? With just over two meters high, it did not seem too high, too strong or too fast to make a living under the hoop, but had guided Spain to a World Cup final who could have ended in glory of not having been because of the general collapse of the last quarter. Minutes after the clash concluded, and even with the shock of the Malaga pavilion after the victory of the United States (67-79), Pau Gasol himself received at the center of the track, between cheers, to that dorsal 13 of the Spanish team: Almansa had been designated the best player of the tournament, the same award that would receive only a few days later in the Eurobasket U1 Sub-19.
It was clear ,. Born in Murcia and son of Steve Horton, an interior with 27 presences in the 2003-04 ACB with Murcia, Almansa had become accustomed to collecting individual distinctions in the best tournaments in international basketball. A year before his first MVP with the National Team, the very young Ala-Pivot Murciano had abandoned the Real Madrid quarry, where he landed two years before from UCAM Murcia, to fly to the United States, where he would become the first Spaniard to sign for the ambitious Overtime Elite Academy. “My dream is to play in the NBA,” he explained then, when the projections placed him among the top 15 elections of the Draft.
Now, four seasons and many worries later, everything indicates that Almansa, 20, to return to the capital of Spain and sign for Real Madrid. Gone are endless attempts to succeed in the US, where he tried luck in the ranks of several teams (the aforementioned Overtime; the Yng Dreamerz; the Ignite Team of the G-League, the NBA Development League; and the Ontario Clippers, the subsidiary of Los Angeles Clippers) before put Wildcats.
There, Almansa not only left averages lower than those used in the US (seven points and four rebounds, for the 12 points and seven rebounds he recorded in the G-League), but suffered one of the most complicated setbacks of his still short career. On June 17, just over a week after the NBA draft was celebrated for which he had declared himself eligible, Almansa was the protagonist in the Australian press because the NBL, the country’s main league, had announced that the young man fulfilled a month of sanction between April and May of this year for giving positive in cannabis during a routine anti -doping control.
The punishment truncated – even more if possible – Almansa’s fate in the 2025 draft. The Spanish, which a few years before seemed to be one of the most coveted pieces in the great New York night, was the only one of the 12 guests to the green room (Reserved space next to the main stage for those young people with high probabilities of being selected) that was not summoned in any of the 60 elections of the NBA teams for the next year. Shortly after, on July 17, Almansa linked his future to the Blue Coats Delaware, the extension of the Philadelphia 76ers in the North American Development League, with whom he debuted before giving the last flying to his career.
Sergio Rodríguez, sports director of the Madrid basketball section since July 2, and Sergio Scariolo, who, in addition to having agreed to the Blanco bench once the Eurobasket (from August 27 to September 14) have contributed to this. “I am a pump player, touch, bounce and pick and roll. I sometimes prefer to defend the little one than the big one”; “Before I was not physically prepared, but now I have improved a lot, I am again the one in the U-19 World Cup.” It will have to prove it at Real Madrid.
