Luis Alberto Flores (basketball player)

Luis Alberto Flores
Player information
Full name	Luis Alberto Flores Matias
birthday	11th April 1981 (age 39)
place of birth	San Pedro de Macorís, Dominican Republic
size	188 cm
position	Point Guard / Shooting Guard
college	Manhattan
NBA draft	2004 , 55th Pick Houston Rockets
Club information
society	Titanes del Distrito Nacional
league	LNB (Dominican Republic)
Clubs as active
1999–2000 Rutgers Scarlet Knights ( NCAA ) 2000 CPN Pueblo Nuevo 2001–2004 Manhattan Jaspers ( NCAA ) 2004–2005 Golden State Warriors 2005 Denver Nuggets 2005 Cocolos de San Pedro 2005–2006 BT Roseto 2006 Naco 2006–2007 Bipop Carire Reggio Emilia 2007 Naco 2007 Cocolos de San Pedro 2007 Olympiada Patron 2008 Indesit Fabriano 2008–2009 Hapoel Holon 2009 Marinos de Anzoátegui 2009–2010 Krasnye Krylja Samara 2010–2011 BK Donetsk 2011 Leones de Santo Domingo 2011–2012 Asefa Estudiantes 2012 BK Budiwelnyk Kiew 2013 Guaiqueríes de Margarita Since 2013 Titanes del Distrito Nacional 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00000 0
National team
Since 02003	Dominican Republic

Luis Alberto Flores (basketball player) medal table
Basketball (men)
Dominican Republic
American Basketball Championship
bronze	Mar del Plata 2011
Pan American Games
silver	Santo Domingo 2003
Centrobasket
silver	Culiacan 2003

Luis Alberto Flores Matias (born April 11, 1981 in San Pedro de Macorís ) is a Dominican basketball player . After a short career in the NBA , Flores played alongside stations in his home country in Europe. With the Dominican national team , Flores won the silver medal at the 2003 Pan American Games in his home country. At club level, Flores reached the final of the EuroChallenge 2009/10 with the Russian club Krasnye Krylja Samara , which was lost to the German club BG 74 Göttingen.

Career

Flores grew up in Washington Heights (New York City) in the United States and went to study at Rutgers University in New Jersey in 1999 , where his compatriot Jeff Greer, who also grew up in Manhattan , worked for the college team Scarlet Knights in the NCAA's Big East Conference played. In this university team, Flores did not get the chance to play as desired and, after playing for a team in his home country in the summer of 2000 , moved back to Manhattan College in New York City. At the U21 Junior World Championships in 2001 in Saitama , the Dominican selection with Flores made it to the semi-finals after a surprising victory against the Israeli junior selection, which started convincingly in the tournament . At the end of the tournament, Flores became the second best individual scorer behind the Argentinian Luis Scola . For the Dominican Republic, fourth place at the World Cup meant an outstanding success in the history of their basketball national team. At Manhattan College, Flores played for the university team Jaspers after a one-year break in competition from 2001 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) of the NCAA for three years . At the end of the 2001/02 season, the Jaspers got an invitation to the National Invitation Tournament , where they were defeated in the first round against the Wildcats of Villanova University . Then they won the regular season and the championship tournament of the MAAC twice in a row, with Luis Flores twice in a row named MAAC Player of the Year and twice the “Lt. Frank J. Haggerty Award for Best New York College Basketball Player. In the national NCAA finals , the Jaspers won after a first round defeat against the eventual title winner Orangemen of Syracuse University in 2003, their opening game surprisingly against the Gators of the University of Florida , but then they lost in the next round to the Demon Deacons of the Wake Forest University , when Flores couldn't stop eventual NBA All-Star and Olympic Champion Chris Paul . Flores scored over 2,000 points in 89 championship games for the Jaspers alone, with an average of 22.7 per game, making him the team's top scorer on the Jaspers' all-time leaderboard. Together with his 114 points for the Scarlet Knights, he came to 2,160 points in his NCAA career.

In 2003, Flores had already made his debut for the men's selection of the Dominican Republic in final tournaments. At the Centrobasket championships of the Central American nations including Mexico, the national team had only lost two games against the undefeated tournament winner Puerto Rico and won the silver medal. At the Pan American Games in 2003 two months later in Santo Domingo , Flores' former teammate from his first college season, Jeff Greer, came up for selection and they could defeat Puerto Rico in front of a home crowd in the semifinals. After a final defeat against Brazil they won again a silver medal. The silver medal was the Dominican Republic's first ever medal win in a Pan American Games basketball competition.

In the 2004 “ Entry Draft ” of the highest endowed professional league NBA, Flores was selected in the second round by the Houston Rockets. Via barter deals with other players, including Vasilis Spanoulis , he ended up with the Golden State Warriors. For this team, however, he was only used in 15 games for just under five minutes per game in the 2004/05 NBA and was exchanged again at the end of February 2005 for the Denver Nuggets, who used him in only one other game. At the end of August 2005, Flores was finally released from contractual obligations by the Nuggets. In November 2005 he was finally signed by the Italian first division club from Roseto degli Abruzzi , where his compatriot Jack Michael Martínez was already playing. In the 2005/06 season of Lega Basket Serie A , Flores was able to prove its qualities as a scorer with over 20 points per game, but only played eleven games as a result of injuries. Thanks to the better direct comparison, Roseto was able to secure the sporting league position in fourth from last place in the table, but subsequently did not receive a new license for economic reasons. In the summer of 2006, Flores played again in the Dominican Republic before he got a pre-season contract with the New Orleans Hornets in the NBA, which was not extended for the season. In early December 2006, Flores was signed by another Italian first division club. At Bipop Carire from Reggio nell'Emilia he was no longer as dominant as a scorer with a good 14 points, but despite two victories this season, this team had to be relegated more than Roseto the year before because of the poorer direct comparison as the penultimate from the top division.

After championship games in the Dominican Republic in summer 2007, Flores was signed by Olympiada from Patras at the beginning of the 2007/08 season . The previous year's climber in the highest Greek division A1 Ethniki had a very bad sporting season, which should end with relegation. Flores left the club at the end of the year and moved back to Italy, where he played in the second division Legadue for the club from Fabriano the season ended. However, Indesit Fabriano was only able to secure relegation at the end of the season in fourth from bottom of the table. In the 2008/09 season, Flores was able to record a success with a professional club team for the first time when he won the national cup competition with last year's Israeli champion Hapoel from Cholon . In the close 69:68 final victory over Maccabi Haifa and the first title for Hapoel Holon in this competition, Flores was the top scorer of his team with 23 points, which, however, as the defending champion in the first play-off round for the championship in the decisive fifth game in the Extra time against Hapoel Galil Elyon was eliminated.

After Hapoel Holon had not participated in any international competition in the preseason, Flores played for the first time in the 2009/10 season for the Russian club Krasnye Krylja from Samara in the EuroChallenge 2009/10 in a European club competition. Krasnye Krylja moved into the Final Four tournament in Göttingen as the top scorer of the competition with Flores . After Flores was able to convert decisive free throws in the final seconds against Scavolini Pesaro in the semifinals , they moved into the final against the host BG 74 Göttingen , who had already won his home game against Samara convincingly in the second round. Krasnye Krylja could not turn the tide in the final either and lost in the end with 75:83. In the 2010/11 season, Flores played in the Basketball Superliga Ukraine for the club from Donetsk , which moved into the play-off final of the championship for the first time under the new coach Saša Obradović . There you lost to the former runner-up BK Budiwelnyk from the capital Kiev . At the American Basketball Championships 2011 in Mar del Plata , Argentina , the Dominican national team won the small final against Puerto Rico with NBA professionals Al Horford , Francisco García and Charlie Villanueva as well as Jack Martinez and Flores. The bronze medal was also the first medal win for the Dominican Republic in this competition.

For the 2011/12 season, Flores was signed by the Spanish first division club Asefa Estudiantes from Madrid . Estudiantes, who belonged to the top Spanish league since it was founded in 1953, was not very successful in the ACB league this season and was in acute danger of relegation when they fired Flores in January 2012 for disciplinary reasons. Then Flores returned to the Ukraine for the rest of the season , where he played for champions BK Budiwelnyk in 20 games. While you could win the national cup competition at the end of March, you were eliminated as the defending champion in the semi-final series of the championship against BK Azovmash Mariupol in four games and finished fourth, while his ex-club BK Donetsk won its first championship. While his national team mates missed the last place in the Olympic basketball tournament in the Olympic qualifying tournament in the decisive match against Nigeria in 2012 , Flores was initially announced as a new addition from Hapoel Eilat at the turn of the year 2012/2013 . In 2013, however, Flores only played for clubs in Venezuela and his home country.

Web links

• archive.fiba.com: Players - Luis Alberto FLORES MATIAS (DOM) - Overview of participations in FIBA competitions ( English )
• Luis Alberto Flores (basketball player) - player profile on basketball-reference.com
• Legabasket: Luis Alberto Flores - player profile on the websites of the Serie A ( Italian )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 2001 World Championship for Young Men. FIBA , accessed on June 26, 2013 (English, tournament overview). 
2. ↑ Luis Flores Shares 71st NIT / MBWA Haggerty Award. Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference , April 21, 2004, accessed June 26, 2013 . 
3. ↑ Don Markus: Wake Forest tops Manhattan, moves on to spot in Sweet 16. The Baltimore Sun , March 21, 2004, accessed on June 26, 2013 (English). 
4. ↑ 2012–2013 Manhattan Men's Basketball Yearbook. (PDF (32.5 MB)) (No longer available online.) Manhattan College , p. 137 , archived from the original on June 19, 2013 ; accessed on June 26, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ Legaduebasket: Luis Alberto Flores. Legadue , accessed June 26, 2013 (Italian, player profile). 
6. ↑ Red Wings Soar Into Final. FIBA Europa , April 30, 2010, accessed June 26, 2013 (English, match report). 
7. ↑ Göttingen Win EuroChallenge In Thrilling Final. FIBA Europa , May 2, 2010, accessed on June 26, 2013 (English, match report). 
8. ↑ ACB.COM: Luis Flores. Liga ACB , accessed June 26, 2013 (Spanish, player profile). 
9. ^ Asefa Estudiantes abre un expediente disciplinario a Luis Flores. Liga ACB , 23 January 2012, accessed on 26 June 2013 (Spanish, media info Asefa Estudiantes).