Marcelinho Huertas, the Brazilian base of Lenovo Tenerife, will receive this Wednesday, September 8 – for the second time in a row – the Efe trophy for the best Latin American player in the Endesa League, a reward he obtained mathematically four days before the end of the regular phase and which recognizes its great contribution to the success of the island team, one of the revelations of the ACB.
For the third year in a row, the ACB and the EFE Agency, leader in Latin America, present this official prize to distinguish the best Latin American players who participate in La Liga Endesa. The Argentinian Nicolás Laprovittola was the first to put his name in the 2018-19 campaign when he was a member of Joventut de Badalona, and Huertas made those corresponding to the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons.
The veteran Brazilian game director (Sao Paulo, 1983) finished first in the final standings with 139 points, beating Cuban center Jasiel Rivero (86), from Hereda San Pablo Burgos, and Argentinian Nico Laprovittola (84), of Barcelona.
Every day, an international jury made up of Latin American basketball journalists, players and coaches voted the three best individual performances with three, two and one point and, from this vote, a weekly ranking was established which been accumulated in a world ranking.
In total, around twenty players managed to score a point from the first day, although it was the Brazilian Huertas who, thanks to his enormous consistency throughout the course, managed to revalidate the Efe Trophy with great authority.
Playmaker Lenovo Tenerife, also chosen as the best base in the competition, received weekly recognition from the Latin American MVP in a total of five days, two in the first round (5 and 13) and three more in the second (25 , 26 and 36).
The ACB underlined that Marcelinho Huertas is going through “one of the sweetest playing moments of his career” in Spain, which has allowed him to enter the current Top10 of the evaluation of the competition (10th, with 15.8 credits) with an average of 14.2 points (11th) and 6.2 assists (2nd, in the wake of Dani Pérez) per game.
In addition, during this Endesa League 2020-21, the Brazilian has established himself as the second highest historical assistant in the Spanish competition, just behind Pablo Laso in the world rankings.
Up to fifteen players have won the award for the best Latin American player of the day during this campaign. Several of them repeated, in the case of Jasiel Rivero, Vítor Benite, Nico Brussino, Nico Laprovittola, James Feldeine and Facundo Campazzo, who won it three times, while Bruno Fitipaldo, Ángel Delgado and Gabriel Deck were are content with two and Eulis Báez, Juanpi Vaulet, Leo Meindl and Leandro Bolmaro also achieved this honor in the 2020-21 season.
Huertas will receive the Efe Trophy on Wednesday, September 8 at the Santo Domingo Convent in San Cristóbal de La Laguna (Tenerife, Spain), at 2:15 p.m. local time (1:15 p.m. GMT).