When the trap saved basketball

Column of the lawyer Jaime Sanabria.

Nostalgia is a transitory state of mind that brings well-being when clothed in the benign. Choosing it as a pretext, refuge and alibi to write these lines, since I have memory and almost mobility use, basketball became my main sport. During my childhood and adolescence, I regularly attended, together with my family and friends, the games of the BSN, a league that dates back to 1930 and that has produced figures of international stature of the caliber, among others, of Carlos Arroyo, José Juan Barea And, if we go back to older times, the names of José “Piculín” Ortiz and Ramón Rivas stand out, the first two Puerto Ricans developed here who debuted in the NBA and extended their careers in the context of top-level European basketball clubs. predominantly Spanish.

If I have allowed myself to be colonized by nostalgia, it is due to that evocation of those times when basketball served as a binder of harmony, of externalization of a feeling of country. I well remember those days when the courts were filled, without rancor, between the hobbies beyond the fact that each one wanted the best for their team. Family, coexistence, solidarity, homeland and sport What more could you ask for?

I grew up admiring, among others, the aforementioned “Piculín” Ortiz and Ramón Rivas. When I started playing at the age of seven, I wanted to emulate them and, although my genes did not give me enough height to get under the boards, they gave me the ability to handle myself as a point guard, depending on the times and coaches. He played and, with the cancheras evolutions, he was understanding life. I understood the value of the strategy, which was nothing more than taking at each moment, in each action, the most effective of decisions to favor the choral game and, consequently, tilt the result in favor of my team. I was hardened to submit to a collective discipline, to draw out the best of me to help the whole and I assimilated that, even, the worst of the teams reveals itself better than the brightest of the individuals, and that can be extrapolated to all orders of life.

I could conclude this preamble with the fact that I learned to choose the most beneficial of the alternatives thanks to basketball. But like everyone else, I grew older, despite myself, and my life followed directions that did not allow my active continuity in basketball. Although I never lost my role as a fan, at one point, I could see how the BSN began to languish after a golden age, and how the courts emptied and the competition became spectral when compared to what it was.

However, sometimes life kisses on the mouth and the unexpected calls to please. And the unexpected has been covered in music, that urban music with profane lyrics and messages that are not always uplifting, but which has been embedded like a tattoo in the musical tastes of a wide swath of the population that reveals itself to be transgressive, dissatisfied, even part of she, nihilist.

This agglutinating music that reflects the congenital and acquired dissatisfactions of a population, in particular and as far as it concerns us, the Puerto Rican, is known as trap, specifically Latin trap, close in rhythm, messages and philosophy to reggaeton and hip hop . In Puerto Rico, we have some of the most relevant representatives on a planetary scale of that musical trend that not a few detractors denounce for its obscene lyrics and for its incitement to machismo, violence and drugs, but that its supporters defend for being a reflection of the streets and current minds of middle and lower classes shaken by inequality, by precariousness, by the gray of a future that is not embossed with its name on the plaque of success.

However, and although both Anuel AA and Bad Bunny adopt an experiential role in the first person to defend their lyrics as manifestations of their lives, the family environment of both does not necessarily present the destructuring or misery of those who do feel identified with their lyrics. Ability to improvise, a territory of predisposed ears and an excellent vision for marketing, has resulted in tens of millions of followers on YouTube or Instagram that have placed the two Puerto Rican rags on the lists of the most affluent people on the island.

The two divergent approaches of these lines, island basketball and Latin trap, and their paths intersect to the surprise of one and the other. It happens that Anuel AA has acquired the franchise of the Capitanes of Arecibo and Bad Bunny that of the Cangrejeros de Santurce.

Both seem to be great basketball fans, and the latter has even participated in two editions of the Celebrity Game, prior to the NBA All-Star Game. The stellar signings of José Juan Barea, returned to a BSN in which he had not played since 2006, and of other players, have led to an outbreak of sports euphoria that has contributed to a recovery in the recently started season of the Puerto Rican basketball league. miraculous attendance of the public to the fields.

On the other side of the rivalry, Anuel AA, owner of the Capitanes, has bet on the national product through players with extensive experience in the national team such as David Huertas, Devon Collier, Denis Clemente and Chris Gaston, as well as Walter Hodge, point guard for the Virgin Islands national team.

However, the real stars not only of the aforementioned ensembles, but of BSN itself, are the two rags. His presence in the zero row of the famous awakens the loudest applause of a recovered hobby to begin the resurgence that places Puerto Rican basketball on the pedestal of past glories.

In addition, the musicians, scholars in generating excitement, invite celebrities to share the queue and matches and provoke among the fans an added curiosity first to see who will flank Anuel AA and Bad Bunny and then, once presented, the exaltation is unleashed and wanting more in the next game. And between celebrity and famous, basketball is meddling in the mindsets of the audience.

In case the acquisition of the two franchises by the two urban musicians had not resuscitated the BSN enough, we must not forget that the Puerto Rican Major League Baseball player, Yadier Molina, also acquired the Bayamón Vaqueros to give them greater competitiveness, perhaps with another philosophy further removed from the show, but with an extra managerial and sporting professionalism.

Puerto Rico is delighted because the cardioresuscitating in extremis maneuvers of a national basketball that are almost residual should lead to the strengthening of those values ​​derived from the collective. The fans also enjoy an improvement in the show that reconciles sport with the idolatry of players and the musicians themselves. With the return of the fans, the value chain is improved, the genealogical pride of the Puerto Rican is recovered and it is hoped that the national team, due to the competitiveness that comes from a growth in quality and the motivation of the players, recovers that pride canchero that led her to win the USA in Athens 2004.

That child who inhabited me and who at the age of seven began to understand, through the practice of basketball, some of the functioning mechanisms of the adult planet, has once again become enthusiastic about the greening of the BSN. Some gestures, some actions, acquire an unsuspected significance even by the most convinced of the prophets. Basketball is back, green, and I’m with it.