The basketball world says goodbye to José Piculín Ortiz, the legendary former Puerto Rican player who died at the age of 62 after a long battle with colorectal cancer.
The former Puerto Rican player, considered one of the great legends of sport in his country and with an outstanding international career, had experienced various health problems in recent years as a result of his illness, which kept him away from public life at various times.
Ortiz, a reference point for generations in Caribbean basketball and with experience in top-level competitions in Europe -defending the colors of Real Madrid and Barcelona- and in the NBA -with the Utah Jazz-, leaves behind an important legacy both on and off the court, where he was a symbol of leadership and competitiveness.
A legendary career
In 1987, he became the second Puerto Rican -after Butch Lee- to be selected in the NBA “draft,” when he was chosen by the Utah Jazz with the 15th pick. In his homeland, Ortiz established himself as one of the most successful players in the history of the Baloncesto Superior Nacional, Puerto Rico’s top league, where he won 8 championships.
His international debut with the national team was in 1983, at the Pan American Games in Caracas, Venezuela. From then on, he represented Puerto Rico in multiple competitions, including the match in which his team defeated the United States at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, where the American team suffered its first Olympic defeat with NBA players -it was later eliminated in the semifinals by Argentina, which ultimately became champion-.
“Piculín” Ortiz was an outstanding player in the ACB League, the top tier of Spanish basketball, where he wore the CAI Zaragoza jersey before going to the NBA, and upon his return, he played for Real Madrid, Barcelona, Festina Andorra, and Unicaja Málaga. With the blaugrana side, he won the Copa del Rey and was runner-up in the European Cup.
His impact on basketball transcended his playing career, being inducted into the Puerto Rican Sports Hall of Fame in 2018 and into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2019.
Read the full article here
