Raymond Dalmau

Raymond Dalmau
Personal information
Born (1948-10-27) October 27, 1948
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Nationality Puerto Rican
Listed height 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)
Listed weight 220 lb (100 kg)
Career information
Playing career 1966–1985
Position Power forward
Coaching career 1990–present
Career history
As player:
1966–1985 Piratas de Quebradillas
As coach:
1990–1994 Puerto Rico
Career highlights and awards
  • 4× BSN champion (1970, 1977–1979)
Career statistics
Points 11,592 (21.6 ppg)
Rebounds 5,673 (10.6 rpg)
Assists 2,302 (5.1 apg)
Medals
Men's basketball
Representing  Puerto Rico
Pan American Games
1979 San Juan Team
1971 Santiago de Cali Team

Raymond Dalmau Pérez (born October 27, 1948) is a retired Puerto Rican professional basketball player and coach. During most of his career, Dalmau played in the Baloncesto Superior Nacional (BSN). His sons Richie, Christian and Ricardo also played basketball on the highest level of Puerto Rican basketball.

Career

Dalmau participated in three Olympics. He held the record for the most career points scored in that league for a long time, scoring over 11,000 points (in the BSN, an exclusive group of players has reached over 5,000 points, since each season is played only for a maximum of 33 games).

In 1968, Dalmau lead the league in scoring. He repeated as scoring champion in 1970, when he won his first championship as a member of the Piratas de Quebradillas. He also helped lead Quebradillas to back to back to back titles in 1977, 1978 and 1979.

He was in conversations in 1975 to sign a contract with the former Utah Stars in the ABA(American basketball association) but he declined to maintain his amateur status. Professional basketball players were not allowed at that time to play for their countries in international competition.

In 1982, Dalmau and Quebradillas returned to the BSN finals, but they lost to Mario Morales and the Guaynabo Mets in six games.

Throughout his career, he was known not only for his abilities on the court, but also for his competitive spirit, which led him to do his best even when paired against taller and stronger rivals in international competitions.

Retirement

In 1985, Dalmau retired from basketball as a player, going on to coaching in the BSN for many years. He has also coached in Venezuela for a number of years.

His sons, Christian, Richie and Ricardo Dalmau, are also productive basketball players at the BSN.

In 2003, Dalmau was diagnosed with colon cancer, of which he recuperated. During a 2005 television show where he and Eddie Miró were being introduced as spokesmen in Puerto Rico for colon cancer, he quipped that, at his age, he can still jog everyday from Santurce to past the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in Isla Verde, which constitutes a considerable distance (more than five miles). On June 16, 2008, a project was approved by the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, in which Dalmau's name was going to be used for a coliseum being built in Quebradillas.[1]

In the 1996 film Basquiat, Benicio del Toro made a homage to Dalmau by wearing a replica of his Puerto Rico men's national basketball team uniform with his distinctive number (14) fourteen. According to the IMDB, his character Benny's last name is Dalmau.[2]

Dalmau will appear in the forthcoming feature-length documentary film Nuyorican Básquet about Puerto Rico's Men Basketball Squad of the 1979 Pan American Games.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Alex Figueroa Cancel (2008-06-17). "Justicia para Raymond" (in Spanish). Primera Hora. Retrieved 2008-06-17.
  2. ↑ "Benny Dalmau". IMDB.com. Retrieved December 13, 2015.
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