The corner he made his own: Tim Abromaitis’s story

By Artem Komarov/ info@eurohoops.net

When Tim Abromaitis arrived in Tenerife nearly a decade ago, he had no idea he was going to stay. Now there is a corner in the gym with a name on Google Maps. It is, naturally, Tim Abromaitis’s corner.

For years, La Laguna Tenerife’s offense has revolved around Marcelinho Huertas and Giorgi Shermadini, while Abromaitis has often found himself waiting patiently on the left side of the floor, ready for the ball whenever it comes his way.

“It’s not always glamorous standing in that corner,” he says. “But if you take the opportunity, then you can make the most of it.”

There is something symbolic about that. Making the most of opportunities has defined much of Abromaitis’s career. He arrived in Europe as a young American basketball player coming off a torn ACL, with no particular reason to believe that his professional career would last as long as it eventually has. Tenerife was supposed to be another stop, another team, another season.
Instead, it became home.

Abromaitis met his future wife on his second weekend on the island. He learned Spanish. His daughter was born there. And now, he is entering his ninth season with Tenerife, a club that was once supposed to be just another stop on his basketball journey.

“I would never have imagined it would turn out this way,” he says. “I mean, I didn’t think, in the first place, that I would play professionally for this long. When I came out of college, I was still recovering from tearing my ACL, and I just said, you know, ‘I’ll play as long as I’m healthy.’ And, knock on wood, I’ve been healthy.

“Since I’ve been in Tenerife, the team has had success, and I’ve kind of made this my home and tried to do my best for the club. I had a period in the middle where I left for a few years and then came back, so I was really lucky to have the opportunity to return. It’s really a great place to play, a great organization. I’ve been lucky with my teammates and coaches. I didn’t expect to be here this long, but it has worked out great.”

“Great” hardly seems like a strong enough word to describe what Abromaitis has done during his time in Tenerife. You only have to open the Basketball Champions League’s all-time leaderboards to see it: three names dominate the lists, and, remarkably, they all belong to the same club.

Marcelinho Huertas. Giorgi Shermadini. Tim Abromaitis.

The comparison might seem unfair. Huertas and Shermadini have built careers that have made them synonymous with European basketball. Abromaitis is not quite in the same category, and he would probably be the first to say so.

“It’s cool that I’m even in the conversation at all with those guys,” he says. “They’re European legends, and it’s been fun being here with them.”

And longevity is perhaps the most interesting part of the story.

Ironmen

Abromaitis has played more than 200 games alongside Huertas and Shermadini, and he has done it after arriving in Europe with a torn ACL behind him. There is no single secret to staying on the floor for so long, he says. Some of it is simply luck.

“Part of it is just luck,” he says. “Staying healthy is, you know, you could have an accident any game, any practice, and you could be down.”

Luck, however, only takes you so far. Over the years, Abromaitis has learned from the players around him, especially Huertas and Shermadini. Part of that is knowing when to back off, when to push and when to give his body a break.

“I think that’s especially something that I’ve learned from Marce and Gio, and Aaron Doornekamp too,” he says. “Just, you know, the ways that you can eat better, sleep better, train harder but not, you know, harder on your body.”

Tenerife has helped with that, too. Abromaitis says the team spends plenty of time in the weight room, working on mobility, recovery and all the little things that don’t necessarily show up in a box score but can determine how long a player stays in the game.

“It’s a whole other routine that I didn’t have when I started in Europe,” he says. “All the different little things that it takes.”

It is a different approach to basketball than the one he had as a young player. Back then, staying healthy was something that happened to him. Now, it is something he actively works at.

The list of veterans around Abromaitis has grown over the years. Last season, Tenerife added another player with a very different kind of experience: Patty Mills.

Mills brought a little bit of the NBA with him, not only in the way he played, but in the way he carried himself around the team. Abromaitis remembers him as a “good vibes guy” and a “fun guy to be around,” someone who brought his own speaker, gave teammates gifts, and generally made himself comfortable from the start.

It was a different kind of experience for Abromaitis, who had spent most of his career in Europe. But perhaps that is another part of what has made Tenerife work for him for so long: there is always something new to learn, even after nine seasons.

A place like home

But perhaps the biggest reason Tenerife stopped being just another stop came almost immediately. Abromaitis had been on the island for only two weekends when he met the woman who would become his wife.

“I got here, and the second weekend I was here, I met my future wife, who’s from here,” he says. “So the whole process of having her with me here has definitely made it a lot easier for it to become my home, to integrate myself with the island and improve my Spanish a lot faster.”

There was never one particular moment when Tenerife suddenly became home. It happened gradually, through the people around him. His wife and her family. His teammates. The fans. The community around the club.

“It’s really an incredible place,” he says. “There are a lot of special people here, within the club, outside the club, the fans, the community. Since day one they’ve treated me like one of them.”
He still remembers arriving at the airport and feeling that welcome immediately. Nearly a decade later, that feeling has not gone away.

And then there is the island itself. Tenerife can feel like two different places depending on where you are. The south is built around resorts and tourists; Abromaitis lives and plays in the north, where everyday life feels much more local.

“You can get away for a day, even just, like, a vacation within being on the island,” he says. “Obviously it’s known for the resorts and the beaches and the weather all year, but once you get to know the people and the traditions and everything, it’s so much more than that here.”

Perhaps that is also why the language came so quickly. Abromaitis had studied Spanish in high school, but years without using it had left him rusty. Tenerife gave him a reason to bring it back, and plenty of people to practice with.

“Halfway through my first season I was speaking pretty well,” he says. “By the end of the first season, I would say I was fluent.”
For someone who never expected to stay in Tenerife this long, the next question is naturally about what happens when basketball eventually comes to an end.

Abromaitis does not have an answer yet.

“That’s a million-dollar question,” he says. “I don’t know. We haven’t figured it out yet.”

His wife is a nurse, and the United States remains an option. They have spent summers there before, but he says they would like to try living there for a little longer and see how it feels.

There is no retirement date circled on the calendar, either. After all, the entire career has been built around plans that didn’t quite go according to plan.

“I don’t have any plans of retiring,” he says. “But I know that it’s coming. One of these years will be my last, and we’ll have to figure it out. I’m just trying to take it day by day right now and enjoy whatever I have left of basketball, and then figure out the rest later.”

Perhaps that is the only sensible way for Abromaitis to look at it. When he first came to Europe, his father, who had played for Real Madrid, as well as in Italy, Turkey and Japan, gave him some simple advice: say yes. Go with your teammates. See the city. Try the restaurant. Go to the party. Take it all in.

Abromaitis did not know then how long Europe would become part of his life. Nearly a decade later, he is still here.