Luis Scola

At 43 years old, Luis Scola has this physical status:

Luis Alberto Scola Balvoa (born April 30, 1980) is an Argentine professional basketball player for Olimpia Milano of the Italian Lega Basket Serie A (LBA) and EuroLeague.

A three-time All-EuroLeague selection with Tau Ceramica, he signed with the Houston Rockets in 2007, and was voted to the NBA All-Rookie First Team.

Later on, he played for the Phoenix Suns, Indiana Pacers, Toronto Raptors and Brooklyn Nets. Scola has been a regular member of the Argentina national team since 1999, that won an Olympic gold team medal in 2004, and a bronze team medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics.

He was honored as the national flag bearer at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Personal life

Scola and his wife, fellow Argentine Pamela, have four children together. He also holds a Spanish passport.

In July 18, 2017, Scola was named as an ambassador for the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires.

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Professional career

Scola began his career with Ferro Carril Oeste's youth teams. He made his professional debut with the same club's pro team in the Argentina league in the 1995-1996 season, at the age of 15.

Scola moved to Spain and signed with Saski Baskonia after the 1997-1998 basketball season in Argentina's Argentine League. He was loaned to Gijón Baloncesto, where he helped the then Spanish League Second Division club gain promotion to the Spanish League First Division. He was loaned back to Gijón during the 1999–2000 season before transferring to Baskonia, where he played for seven seasons.

Scola's three consecutive EuroLeague Final Fours between 2005 and 2007 were in the 2000–01 season and three consecutive EuroLeague Final Fours between 2005 and 2007. He was awarded the All-EuroLeague Second Team selection in 2005 and 2007 respectively, as well as two All-EuroLeague First Team picks in 2006 and 2007.

Although Scola did not win the EuroLeague championship with Baskonia, he did win every major Spanish League title with them, winning a Spanish King's Cup in 2002, 2004, 2005, and three Spanish Supercups in 2005, 2006, 2007.

The San Antonio Spurs of the NBA (who drafted Scola in 2002) attempted to find out who would buy him out of his contract in the summer of 2005. The teams decided on a number of different aspects of the deal, rather than £3 million. Because of the NBA's law limiting teams to spending no more than $500,000 of a player's buyout, Scola was able to join fellow Argentina national team member Manu Ginóbili in San Antonio. Scola would have been responsible for paying Baskonia the remaining $2.5 million amount of the buyout. Fabricio Oberto, Argentine national team colleague and friend of Scola's, was drafted out of Scola's contract when it fell through.

In exchange for Vassilis Spanoulis, a future second-round draft pick, and cash considerations, the Spurs traded the rights to Scola, center-forward Jackie Butler, to the Houston Rockets on July 12, 2007. He signed with the Rockets right after, and his US$3.2 million buyout was completed a few days later. Scola has been with the Rockets for three years, earning him $9.5 million. Scola finished third in the NBA 2007-08 Rookie of the Year Award voting, and he was also selected to the NBA All-Rookie First Team. He scored a career-high 44 points against the New Jersey Nets on March 13, 2010.

On the afternoon of December 8, 2011, the day before the 2011 NBA lockout ended and players could move between the Rockets, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the New Orleans Hornets, Scola's Darryl Odom joined the Hornets, along with Goran Dragi, Kevin Martin, and Lamar Odom. In exchange, the Rockets will have acquired Pau Gasol, and the Lakers will have received star point guard Chris Paul. Following other team owners' voices of condemnation, league commissioner David Stern nullified the trade on Wednesday night.

He was waived by the Rockets on July 13, 2012, owing to the league's amnesty statute's provision of salary cap relief. Scola was not fired due to a lack of results, according to some, but the whole agreement was an effort to free cap space for the Rockets to trade for former Orlando Magic All-Star center Dwight Howard. Howard was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, but the Rockets still acquired former Oklahoma City Thunder Sixth Man of the Year shooting guard James Harden and Olympic gold medalist James Harden.

The Phoenix Suns granted Scola amnesty waivers on July 15, 2012. According to reports, the Dallas Mavericks and the Cleveland Cavaliers were also interested in acquiring him during the amnesty process. For the first time in his NBA career since the start of his rookie season, he was relegated to playing off the bench on November 21, 2012. He returned to his starting position less than a month ago, and the Minnesota Timberwolves scored a season-high 33 points on December 29. Although Scola did become a leader for the Suns, his 12.8 points per game were his lowest level since the 2008-09 season.

The Suns traded Scola to the Indiana Pacers in exchange for Gerald Green, Miles Plumlee, and a future second round draft pick. He played a back-up power forward to David West in his two seasons with the Pacers, starting just 18 games in his two-year tenure.

Scola signed with the Toronto Raptors on July 15, 2015. In a 106–99 victory over the Indiana Pacers, he made his Raptors debut in the season opener on October 28, he had eight rebounds while missing no field goal attempts. For the first time in franchise history, he helped the Raptors reach the Eastern Conference Finals in 2016.

Scola signed with the Brooklyn Nets on July 13, 2016. In a 122–117 loss to the Boston Celtics on October 26, he made his Nets debut in the season opener, scoring eight points.

Scola's last NBA game was played on February 13th, 2017 in a 103-112 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, where he had 4 assists and 4 rebounds but no points in 15 minutes of playing time. He was cut off by the Nets on February 27, 2017.

Scola signed with the Shanxi Brave Dragons of the Chinese Basketball Association on July 9, 2017.

Scola signed with the Shanghai Sharks of the Chinese Basketball Association on August 10, 2018.

Ettore Messina, the team's head coach, after losing to Germani Basket Brescia on September 29, 2019, announced that Scola had signed with the team for the remainder of the season. Scola graduated Olimpia Milano on June 11, 2020.

Scola announced on July 1st that he would play at least one year more before retirement and then joined Pallacanestra Varese of the LBA for the 2020-21 season, with the option to extend to the next year.

Post-playing career

Pallacanestro Varese announced on September 20, 2021, that Scola would re-join them as Chief executive officer.

National team career

Scola captured gold medal at the 1995 South American Cadet Championship, the gold medal at the 1996 South American Junior Championship, and the bronze medal at the 2001 FIBA Under-21 World Cup, as well as Argentina's junior national teams.

Scola has received multiple awards in his time as a member of Argentina's national team, including the bronze medal at the 2000 FIBA Americas Championship, the silver medal at the 2004 FIBA Americas Championship, the bronze medal at the 2009 FIBA Americas Championship, and the bronze medal at the 2013 FIBA Americas Championship, among other events. Scola became the all-time top scorer in FIBA AmeriCup history in 2015 and captured his fourth tournament MVP.

During the 2010 edition of the Argentina national team, Scola set two records (beating Ernesto Gehrmann's 331 points) and most points scored for Argentina in one game at a World Cup (scoring 37 against Brazil in the round of 16, defeating Alberto Desimone's 35 points scored against Mexico in 1963).

He was a member of the Pan American Games in 2019 at 39 years old.

In the seven matches en route to the final, he scored 135 points and 57 rebounds. In a preliminary round of the 2019 World Cup game at Wuhan, Scola scored 23 points against Nigeria, giving him a total of 611 points in his World Cup career. With this Scola earned the second best result in the tournament to Brazilian scoring great Oscar Schmidt's 906 points.

Scola lost by 23 points to Slovenia in the first round of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

During Scola's last game at the 2020 Summer Olympics, when his Argentinian team was playing Australia, he had a halt to play. Scola had been called out and players from both teams, mentor, and fans of the stadium extended their applause for his respect with less than a minute remaining in the game. Since they understood the occasion, the referees tolerated this pause in the game.

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