que pasa?

Sadly, the other day i was watching Telemundo's weekly show on the NBA. For some reason, the whole show was about the Bucks. First they did a piece on Santiago, then Michael Redd, and then TJ Ford. I guess there aren't too many teams that have a Spanish speaking player. Isn't Santiago Puerto Rican?

 

haha, i had a pleasant surprise when my friend told me the Rockets game was on telemundo. Watching the game in Spanish was a first time experience. Did anyone catch the cheeseheads the annoucers were wearing in the pregame?? that was hilarious.

The same question about the bias-ness came up for me also. My theory is those were the local announcers for the bucks. Since telemundo probably doesn't do enough NBA games to warrant a full time staff, they just ask the local spanish annoucers to call it. So if the game was in Houston, it would have been the local spanish Houston announcers calling the game in favor of the Rockets.

 

no, telemundo has their own national announcers. they are just biased towards their own players, which is why they had the bucks on in the first place. they have a lot of mavericks and spurs games too, because of najera and ginobili, and they root for those teams as well. nothing wrong with a little national pride, although it was INCREDIBALY annoying listening to them root against the rockets. every time the refs called osmething for us, theyd question it, but when santiago flops on yao, they go crazy cheering.

 

What did oscar torres speak?


we shoulda kept him...

 

I caught a TWolves game earlier this year, and they interviewed Mark Madsen (who speaks Spanish) before he went into the locker room at the half. I already can't stand the guy...and to top it off he shows that he is an idiot (well, he lacks common sense) when the lady asked him a question in spanish and he asks her back "want me to answer in english or spanish?". Hmm...its Telemundo, lets see. :

Just more reason to make fun of him.

 

yeah, he's from argentina

 

mark madsen is from another planet.

 

Daniel Santiago is actually from Texas. His wife is from Puerto Rico and he plays for their national team.

 

This is the interview with him from NBA.com:
http://www.nba.com/bucks/features/santiago_qa_040305.html

Q - Where did you grow up and what is your connection to Puerto Rico as you’ve played on their national team?
A - I was born in Lubbock, Texas, and I was raised in Lamesa, Texas, a small farming community outside of there. I was raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as well. So I didn’t go to Puerto Rico until ’96, when I played for the national team. I grew up with the English language, so the English language is my first language. I learned Spanish through school, but I learned it even more when I went to Puerto Rico. I’ve stayed in Puerto Rico since ’96 and I’ve been going back and forth. I met my wife there, and I have a lot of friends there.

Q - How big is basketball in Puerto Rico?
A - It’s a big deal down there, obviously baseball is one of the top sports down there, but all the baseball players want to be basketball players. Everybody wants to play basketball, it’s a big thing down there, especially the national team because we have some good players on the team. It’s interesting to have a small island competing in the Olympics. We’ve been able to do that in years past and hopefully we can keep that tradition alive and keep basketball growing in Puerto Rico.

Q - How have your experiences playing in Europe and around the world helped you?
A - It’s a different style of game, but it was a blessing for me because I didn’t have a big name coming out of college, so I needed to get out there and play and get some exposure. My first year we won the A-1 championship, which is the top division in Italy. So that was a big deal for me and that’s helped my career and helped me get on teams that are contenders, not pretenders. I’ve been on good teams, and I played in Rome. That’s really helped my career and helped my confidence in myself. I’ve been able to travel around playing for those teams, it’s opened my eyes and I’ve been able to see different cultures and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. It’s been a real blessing for me and my family to be able to do and see all those things.

I’ve been to Russia, Israel, Turkey, Spain and France. Where we lived in Italy, we bordered Switzerland, so I’ve been there a lot. I’ve been all over South America, Canada, Australia, so basketball has taken me all over the world. Except for China and Japan, I’ve been pretty much everywhere.

Q - How have you enjoyed playing in Milwaukee?
A - I feel blessed, throughout your career you pray that you get on a good team in a good situation with a nice contract. I think that God has blessed me and my family, putting us in a real nice city like this one. The people are nice, the team is great both on and off the court. We have some really good guys that respect each other. We just have good people. You look forward to coming to practice, whereas teams I’ve played for in the past it’s a ‘here we go again’ kind of thing. I’ve met a lot of people who are very professional and that’s important to me, to have people who take pride in what they do. I think we have a lot of people here, including the staff, who take pride in what they do and that’s very important to me.

Q - Have you found any places in Milwaukee you like to go to, restaurants, etc…?
A - Most of the time we’re eating in, since my wife is a good cook. We don’t go out much because we have so much going on at home and we want to make sure that we feed our children good food and don’t go out all the time to fast food or things like that. We like Italian food, my wife likes Mexican food, there’s some Puerto Rican food at a YMCA community center. We pick and choose, I’m on the road so much and I’m always eating out on the road, so I like to eat at home.

Q – Have you found a Puerto Rican community in Milwaukee?
A - One Puerto Rican friend of mine lives here and does and hour of urban Christian music on the radio. I like hip-hop and rap and Christian music, it motivates me and gets me going before the game. He and I have the same interests and we’re trying to get a hip-hop concert out here. Those are things that we have planned and hopefully they’ll work out.

Q - What do you enjoy off the basketball court?
A - Right now, playing with my kids, I have a little girl who is 2 and we recently had a baby girl. I just try to take care of them, we travel so much that I try to be around them as much as I can. I like to watch movies, and I like to play PlayStation even though I don’t have much time for that right now. Usually, my whole day is basketball and I’m beat when I come home and then I have to wrestle with the kids, so that’s a full time job.

Q - How do you stay prepared for the different roles you’ve played with the Bucks?
A - One thing about me that God has helped me throughout my career is that I’ve been in every situation on every type of team. I’ve been the starter, the guy who doesn’t play at all or the guy that plays just a little bit. I think mentally you have to stay prepared and be ready to get in. It’s hard for some people to do, some people think negatively, like ‘why aren’t they playing me?’ but when they call me I’m ready. I think that’s the best thing you can do, because if you do well, then they can rely on you more and later on down the line, when important things come up, they know they can call on you and you’ll be ready to answer the call. I want them to be able to trust me to be out there and play hard and do whatever I can to get us the ball or score or do whatever I can to help us win. That’s one thing I want the coaches and fans to know that I’m out there working hard with whatever minutes I have and I’m out there playing as hard as I can, that’s how I prepare myself. We have talented players who play a lot of minutes and if my job is to go out there and give them some rest, that’s what I have to do. If they want me to start one night and try to hold Shaq down, then I have to do the best I can with that.

Q - What style of play do you prefer, what do you bring with your game?
A - The main thing for me is I like team basketball where everybody touches it, everybody gets a pass, gets a look, gets to score. We all play defense together. We gang up and steal the ball or whatever. For me, the team aspect of basketball, that’s what it’s based on, playing as a team. There are teams out there with one dimension, one player that does all the scoring. That’s tough for me, I like it when everyone is active and everyone gets a piece of the pie. I think with this team, that’s what happens. And when we play together, we’re really tough to stop.

Q - After growing up in the southwestern United States, going to school in Pennsylvania, living in Europe and Puerto Rico, and now coming to Milwaukee, where do you call home?
A - Hopefully, home is going to be in Orlando Florida. Even now, the way basketball goes with me, playing internationally, I do have to go back to Puerto Rico, as I have a home there. I’m trying to establish my residence in Orlando so I can have an excuse to get away from basketball at times. For me it’s a year round thing and that’s the way it is now, basketball is just year round. You want to stay in shape, you want to keep your touch, keep your rhythm. For me it’s a year round thing and I try not to be burned out, but I can’t completely stop. I’ve met people in Orlando who help me work out and hopefully it will be a home base for me. When I go back to Puerto Rico, I have my home to go to, which is a blessing. It’s a nice house for our family; it’s a great area.

Q - What players have inspired you to play basketball?
A - Growing up watching Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, I’ve always liked the sky hook. Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Magic, all those guys. Hakeem, David Robinson, when Shaq came in, everyone was watching him. Alonzo Mourning, those guys. I try to take whatever I can from people’s games that will help me and try to make a Frankenstein, if you will, from different people’s games and put that together for my game. There are things I can do great and things I can’t do great. I have to know my weaknesses and my advantages and that’s something I’ve done in the past couple years, I understand how I play and I have more confidence in myself.

Q - What are some of your professional and personal goals?
A - I would like to win a NBA title. I’ve been in the playoffs with Phoenix, and I think I have a really good chance with Milwaukee. That’s a goal for every basketball player in the NBA, I would hope. I would like to win a medal in the Olympics, that’s something we have a good chance to do this coming Olympics. I want to have a healthy and successful career. I want to touch people’s lives. I’m a Born Again Christian and I believe that my relationship with Jesus has gotten me to where I am today. I believe if I didn’t have that relationship with Jesus, I wouldn’t be here at all. There are things that I look back on and say ‘wow,’ if I had know that was going on, things might have been different. God has worked everything out for a reason and that’s a big thing for me now, to be able to touch people’s lives and help people.

Q - What have been the keys to the team’s success thus far?
A - We play together. When we play together, we’re real hard to stop. We have talented guys who can score at every position and do other things. The main thing we have is that we play hard. There have been games where we’ve been down 20 and, with some teams I’ve been on, they’ll just throw in the towel and that’s it, things get worse and worse. We give ourselves a chance to win every night. You’ll have your off nights, but we give ourselves a chance to win. I think a lot of teams in the NBA don’t give themselves that chance, we do and I think that’s what’s made us so successful and so close with every game. We’d like it where we could break away and get a 10, 15 or 20 point lead, but in the NBA it’s tough to do that. I think that’s the main thing, we always compete, even though we may start out bad, we always give ourselves a chance to win.