Photo: www.canchalocal.com

The Mecca of basketball is NYC, but just across the Hudson lays the grounds where many gifted ballplayers arise. The names from the past decade are quite famous: Al Harrington, Tim Thomas, Jay Williams, Dajuan Wagner, Andrew Bynum, the list goes on. One thing they have in common is making the NBA; one thing they are missing is success on a worldwide level. To find NJ’s other international star, if you count Loul Deng, look no further than Hudson County. Four years at North Bergen High School and a stellar Hofstra U. career produced a sharpshooter in Rick Apodaca who starts for the Puerto Rican National Team (that beat the US in ’04).

Rick Apodaca is a player that has never been able to achieve the NBA dream, but has still made moves in the NBDL with the now defunct Huntsville Flight as well as overseas triumphs. Most notably, Apodaca has been with the Puerto Rican National Team since ’02 and is continuing to play well in a system that showcases Carlos Arroyo, Daniel Santiago, Peter John Ramos, and Larry Ayuso. (The first three in that list have NBA experience.) While Rick is not even in the top four options for his Olympic team, he still shows that you cannot sleep on him with good point production in his overseas play averaging 19.7 ppg in the Italian A league.

A former Polish Pro League MVP, Apodaca currently shares the court with fellow Americans Preston Shumpert (Syracuse) and Brian Chase (NBDL star and Berry Farms regular) for Besiktas ColaTurka Istanbul in the Premier Turkish League. Let us not forget the street credibility that Rick brings to the table by playing for team K1X throughout the summer at Kingdome (read about one of his ‘07 games here). Apodaca is now also a signature spokesman for the German brand and wears the Strictly Business model sneaker. In between training/competing in the Olympics for Puerto Rico and showing off his talent in overseas and minor leagues, Apodaca keeps NJ proud.

(Note) Apodaca was born in NYC, but lived most of his life in NJ.

Justin Solomon