At the end of June, when coach Scariolo gave the list for the pre-Olympic, Joel Parra (Barcelona; 24 years old) took a tremendous blow. He would not go with Spain, that team that he even championed as captain a few months before. “We are going with the group of players who in these weeks have given us the best feelings of being able to contribute something different and important to the team. He will return if he is able to make his presence in the national team’s training independent from the fact that the season with his club has not gone as he would have liked,” Scariolo resolved in front of the gallery. Although between them, privately, the message was different: I had to lose kilos. Disgust, however, did not sink Parra. Rather, it made him react. Although he would soon have more reasons.
It turns out that when Barça signed Joan Peñarroya to replace Grimau on the bench, the coach called all the players before the preseason and individually to explain how he wanted to play and what he wanted from them. With Parra it was clear. “If you get in shape, we can use you more,” he advised him. A song already heard and a message received because the forward, even though it was summer, focused on nutrition and physical preparation. He hired a chef, who works in conjunction with the club’s nutritionist, put on a diet and increased physical sessions. “When he arrived at the club in preseason, we were all shocked at the change he had made. ‘Fuck Joel,’ we said to each other,” they reveal about the locker room. By then, I had lost 12 kilos. Now there are 15.
“He takes it very strictly,” they point out from the dressing room; “To the games he takes his tupperware with strawberries, pineapples, dates… Antioxidants and, in the process, he removes the sugars naturally.” So, eat something before the matches and even during the intermission. And his effort has been rewarded with minutes and results. Especially in the ACB. “Roger didn’t give him many chances because Kalinic was almost untouchable. He did not protest with that secondary role. But with Joan he is getting more minutes and more stripes, and he plays even injured,” they remark from the hallways of the Palau. They refer to the match against Lleida, when he sprained his ankle after a drive to the basket and finished the game to score 16 points. “He has gained a lot in security and confidence. Last year he did not dare to shoot on certain occasions and now he does not hesitate. But he is a boy who thinks about the team and not about personal appearance,” they point out from the hallways of the Palau.
The numbers are clear: last year he played 17.32 minutes per game, scored 6.4 points on average and his rating was 7.4. In this, he plays 20.19 minutes – he is the fourth most, only behind Punter (20.53), Parker (23.48) and Satoransky (21.01) -, he reaches 9.3 points and his rating has risen to 11.7, with the curious that he has not yet missed a free throw and makes almost two per collision. In the Euroleague, however, the figures are very similar to the previous year. “And the team’s losses have not helped him because he has had to play as a 4, because he has a body, when he is a 3,” the club points out.
Parra’s physical change, in any case, is not the only thing that the player has applied himself to during his career. As a child, due to his size and wrist, he stood out with little effort and focused on scoring points and more points. As the years went by, however, he realized that it had to be applied in defense. “I understood that this gave me more minutes on the court,” the player explained to this newspaper in his last year at Joventut. His way of shooting also varied, since ever since he could remember he executed throws with his right foot. Seeing him in the Joventut youth team, they asked him to do it with his left, since he is left-handed. After a lot of work and, copying in his own way the ex-Azulgrana Pete Mickeal –one of his idols-, he naturalized the shot. “He is very professional and very serious in his work,” the club praises him; “But in the locker room he’s a big joke, although some of us are already tired of him always being rude in the locker room.”
He has become friends with Juan Núñez – he even let him live in his house near the Palau when he did not yet have his residence – and he gets along wonderfully with the national players, to the point that it is not unusual to see him playing pocha in the trips with Hernangómez, Abrines, Núñez, Brizuela and the surprising Justin Anderson. “But he gets along with everyone because he is a guy who makes himself loved,” they point out from the dressing room. That is also what he intends with Peñarroya and Scariolo, who has not yet called him back with Spain. It will not be because of his pride and tenacity, nor will it be because of weight.
