Amazing story: EuroLeague star Walter Tavares was discovered in his grandmother’s shop

In March 2009, two men entered the office of the head of the youth academy of the Spanish basketball club Gran Canaria, Raul Rodriguez: a colleague of his and Joaquin, who sold cars in the Canaries and often vacationed in Cape Verde. There is a considerable chance that without him we would know nothing about EuroLeague legend Walter Tavares.

At the meeting, Joaquin shared that he saw an extremely tall young man on the Cape Verde Islands, who, according to him, was taller than 208 cm. Rodriguez heard him out but needed proof before visiting him that the guy under question was indeed a human crane.

So Joaquin returned to Maio, a small island with a population of 8,000, with only one basketball court. The hoops were broken though, so it wasn’t much fun to play there. It’s no wonder that 17-year-old Tavares didn’t know much about basketball.

The first time, Joaquin met Tavares in the store of the latter’s grandmother, where he worked as a cashier. The Spaniard tried to sell him the idea of giving basketball a try, explaining that he would be able to help his family to be better off by doing so.

Despite the sweet talk, the young man was confused. “You want me to play basketball, not football?”

Basketball was the only sport that took hold in Maio. Joaquin explained himself over and over, but Tavares was still hesitant because he couldn’t take the car salesman seriously.

The conversation took an even stranger turn when Joaquin asked Tavares for a photograph where a normal-sized person would be standing next to him and also the numerical information about the exact height of tall the man from the Black Continent. He promised to send it to the right people.

So it was done. It turned out that 17-year-old Tavares was 216 cm tall, and Joaquin also got a photo of the youngster standing with a person of ordinary measurements.

Plan A failed because Tavares was asleep

Joaquin kept his word. Seeing the photo, Rodriguez decided that he wanted to see Tavares with his own eyes and took with him the assistant coach of the Gran Canaria main team, Carlos Frade, and Alejo Melero, one of the leading men of the youth program.

The parties met in Praia, the capital of the Cape Verde Islands. The men who had flown in from the Canaries and Tavares agreed to meet in a cafe. The Spaniards arrived, took their seats and waited. And waited. And waited some more.

In the end,  Tavares didn’t show up because he had accidentally fallen asleep.

In the afternoon, Tavares called the men and arranged a new time and place for the meeting. They agreed upon a basketball hall, which was much closer to the place where the youngster was staying than the Café de Paris, which was very popular among tourists.

However, it soon seemed to the Spaniards that plan B would also fail, because again Tavares was not where he was expected at the agreed time.

Or wasn’t he?

The Spaniards called Tavares and it turned out that the future basketball star was actually not late. He was at one entrance of the hall, the guests from Europe at the other entrance. Melero went there, Frade and Rodriguez went inside the hall.

When Melero saw Tavares, he was stunned by his size. The next obstacle was the fact that the Tavares didn’t have basketball shoes. He preferred to be barefoot, and when he needed shoes, he walked in sandals that fit only half of each foot.

So Melero called his brother Javier, who lived in Praia, and asked for help. He, in turn, turned to the Cape Verde Basketball Association, and together they started hunting for sneakers so that Tavares, who had never played basketball before, could show what he could do.

To pass the time, Tavares and the Spaniards chatted. It turned out that the young giant had two feet on the ground and was very educated.

Rise to the NBA radar

When the sneakers finally arrived, the next problem arose: they were too small. Somehow, Tavares’ practically boat-sized feet were fit into the shoes, and the long-awaited and once-postponed test could begin.

They did very rudimentary things in training, but the Spaniards liked that Tavares picked up tips like a sponge and did the exercises correctly. What Gran Canaria saw in him was a long-term project, but also huge talent.

They took him under their wing. When Tavares arrived in Spain with a student visa, the club’s U18 team was already complete. In order for the African to play, Gran Canaria also made a B team.

Tavares’ development was rapid. It was also expected, as the youngster trained under experienced instructors and was taking his first steps in basketball.

The center reached the representative team of Gran Canaria already for the 2012/13 season. The following summer, one of the most respected coaches in Europe, Aito Garcia Reneses, was hired as the head coach, who liked to work with young people and who had trained Pau Gasol, Ricky Rubio and Rudy Fernandez before they reached the NBA. By the way, before moving to North America, the latter of them had said that all his basketball knowledge came thanks to Reneses.

While in his debut season in the Spanish championship, Tavares took part in 12 matches, where he played an average of 5.6 minutes, but under Reneses, his playing time increased to 20.7. He contributed six points and 6.8 rebounds per game, being one of the best scorers in Europe’s strongest national league.

With that season, Tavares also got on the NBA’s radar. The Atlanta Hawks selected him as the 43rd player in the 2014 draft, but before moving to the dream league, he spent one more season in Gran Canaria, where he played an even bigger role and made good statistical progress.

In the NBA, after two seasons, Tavares had played only 13 games. He was simply not ready for this level and returned to Spain in November 2017, joining forces with Real Madrid.

The rest, as the classics say, is history.