Tavares: “There was nothing with Panathinaikos”
The center, who renewed his contract with Real Madrid last summer for five seasons, confirmed in an interview with Eurohoops that his desire was always to stay with the white team.
Walter Tavares celebrated seven years at Real Madrid a few weeks ago. The center landed at the white team in November 2017 and made his debut in a Clásico. In the Spanish capital, he has found his place, and although before renewing with Real Madrid (he signed for five more seasons this summer, until June 2029, some put him on the radar of Panathinaikos, the Cape Verdean giant was clear about where he wanted to play. “ Nothing happened. My intention was always to continue at Madrid. I respect the Panathinaikos fans a lot. They are a great team,” he acknowledged in an interview with Eurohoops.
At 2.20 m tall, he has become one of the great dominators of the Euroleague, even though the game has changed and is no longer a sport for giants. “Now the game is for the short guys. And I think it used to be for the big guys. The style has changed. Now you can see everyone shooting threes, the big guys too. Everyone wants to be a point guard, everyone wants to have the ball. It is the era of basketball for the short guys.”
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Tavares, who will turn 33 in March, ended an NBA stint in 2017 that lasted only two years and in which he only played 13 games in the North American League. His first destination was the Atlanta Hawks, who had drafted him in 2014 in 43rd place. “I didn’t have a chance. Maybe I didn’t get to Atlanta at the right time. When I arrived, the Hawks didn’t have a great team, but now they have good players and they have made the playoffs quite a few times,” explains the center who played eleven games, without any impact on the game (2.3 points and 1.9 rebounds in 6.6 minutes) with the Georgia franchise.
After a stint in the Development League, his next NBA destination was the Cavaliers, who signed him as a replacement for Larry Sanders before the start of the playoffs. He played with Cleveland in the last game of the regular season but did not get a chance during the playoffs, in which the Cavs lost the final to the Warriors. “In Cleveland, the same thing happened to me. They said they wanted me. But they wanted me to stay in the G-League waiting for the right moment. I was pissed off and decided to try another way to be happy with basketball again.”
Tavares admits that he hit rock bottom in the NBA. “I started to hate basketball. The main thing was to be happy again, work hard and improve on the court.” And then the option of Real Madrid appeared.
With his signing for Pablo Laso’s team at the time, Tavares returned to Spanish basketball, which, at the time, allowed him to change his life. Tavares was discovered by a German tourist in Maio (Cape Verde) when he was 17 years old from there he went to the Gran Canaria youth team and in four years he had already debuted with the first team in ACB. “I didn’t know anything about basketball. Basketball saved my life. I’m going to die on the court every time I have the chance. No injury is going to take me out of the game.”