Vaulet soars

Headphones on and volume to the max. He takes his seat in the eleventh row, next to the emergency exit and the window. He stretches his long legs and, once the plane takes off, he lies his head and closes his eyes. It takes no more than three songs by Soda Stereo – one of his favorite bands – and Juan Pablo Vaulet falls asleep. He dreams of his comeback to the Argentine national team.

His hopes of reaching the top stages in basketball appeared when Juampi was just a kid. His father, Néstor, who played amateur basketball, taught him to be passionate about this sport. “I played in Atenas until I was 13. Then, I played for a year in Unión Eléctrica and three in Hindú. From there, I moved on to the National League. My dad watched the NBA and Argentine league games. We liked to go and watch Atenas, who filled the court and had a good team, with Pichi Campana as a star. The entire family was interested in basketball. Already, at the age of 15, I knew I was going to be a player. With my brother, I practiced in a court we had at home, and we always competed. There was a lot of difference because I am two years older, and I was physically superior. When he turned 17, he equaled my level and proved that I defeated him before because I was older and had more experience. Now, when we come from our breaks, we still compete in that court, or we go to Hindú and play one-on-one or two-on-two with José Vildoza and other friends. Those games always start in peace and end deadly," Vaulet shares.

The first significant impact was in 2015. On June 25, the NBA's deputy commissioner, Mark Tatum, announced that the Charlotte Hornets had picked Juan Pablo Vaulet in the 39th position of the NBA Draft. That same night, the Brooklyn Nets bought the rights to the small forward. Two days later, the last Argentine picked by a franchise of the world's most potent league, started to play in his second U19 World Cup. This is how Vaulet remembers the moment: "I was in Bahía Basket. It was my first year as a professional player, and every day I felt better. Close to the conclusion of the season, my agent talked about the chance of getting into the Draft. When the time came to decide, he told me that there were possibilities of being picked in the second round and he told me to do it, I wouldn't lose anything by trying.”

During that U19 World Cup, Vaulet portrayed an outstanding level in the first two games (with 15 points against Turkey and 16 against China). However, in the third match, against Spain, he suffered a stress fracture in his right tibia. The small forward relieves the event that happened five years ago: "At the time I was injured, and I traveled to the United States to recover and to formally meet the Nets. They told me that they didn’t want me at the time; that they rather evaluate my progress through the years. I was able to see what the NBA world is, how they worked, and that caught my attention. To this day, I stay in contact with the Brooklyn scouts, and they ask me how I'm feeling. If one day they consider that I can be there, they'll call me. From the moment they drafted me, I had a lot of injuries that hindered my development. Two or three years went by, and I stopped thinking about the NBA because I didn't want to be all the time showing them that I can play there. Maybe when I did want to do it, it played against me because that's when I got the injuries, which could've been caused by that anxiety. That took me a step back. I decided to continue working on my career without constantly being aware of them. Now I feel closer than at that time, although it’s not my main objective. What I do is try to improve every day.”

Juan Pablo, who’s suffered several injuries in his career, underwent a strange situation by the end of 2018. His brother Santiago, a point guard and teammate in Bahia Basket, was diagnosed with a heart problem and was asked to rest. When considering that it might be a genetic condition, they also left the oldest Vaulet sibling without athletic activities. However, as the small forward says, he didn't have the same health problem: “I wanted to leave Bahía because I wanted to change clubs, experience other challenges. That was when my brother had a problem related to his blood pressure. What they told him was that if he didn’t relax his heart, he'd always have very high blood pressure. He underwent treatment to regulate it. Because of that, they said that I had the same condition because they figured it was a family thing. I didn't get, and I still don't get why that happened. They did tests on me that were always well. I never had the problem my brother had. Later, just in case, I had tests run on my own, and the results said that I could play. When I left for Peñarol, they also checked me, and I played for five months feeling very well. And now, the same thing in Manresa.”

Ever since Vaulet arrived at the Catalan team in the current season, he participated in 21 games of the ACB League, with 7.8 points and 3.3 rebounds per game. He also played the 14 games of the Basketball Champions League, with an average of 9.1 points and 4.1 rebounds. "During that period in Spain, I found something that's very important: staying constant and being there. Throughout the entire 2019, I was able to play both in Peñarol and Manresa. I had good and bad games, but I always stayed active, unlike other times in my career. That was a great step, considering that it's the cornerstone of it all,” Juampi says.

In Manresa, there were a couple of Argentine players that had had were outstanding in the past: Andrés Nocioni and Juan Espil. Vaulet is compared to the Olympic champion because of the energy he has when he goes toward the rim: “They talk to me about Nocioni. They tell me that he was always going forward, that he didn’t mind anything. They tell me that I'm like him in that sense. I met Chapu when he played for the Chicago Bulls, when he was already an amazing player. They also remember Espil very well. Thanks to his awesome shots, most attacks were for him.”

Destiny smiles on Vaulet, which is why Sergio Hernández called him again for the Argentine team. The forward had appeared in two encounters on the Road to China for the FIBA Basketball World Cup. He debuted on February 23, 2018, in a game lost, 88-83, against Uruguay. Three days later, he scored his first nine points in the win against Paraguay, 83-61. The Cordoba-native enjoys this new challenge: "When (the national team) called me, they were very happy in the club and allowed me to travel. I'm very happy, and I really want to be a part of the national team again. I'm very focused on doing my job well in the club, on improving several aspects, and that's what brought me again to wearing the Argentine jersey. I'm not thinking about the Olympic Games. I want to leave a good image this time, go back to Spain to conclude the ACB League, and keep improving. I seek to give my best so that new possibilities of being in the national team arise.”

In this new Argentine squad built for the start of the FIBA AmeriCup 2021, Vaulet met once again with teammates from previous youth national teams: Agustín Cáffaro, Pedro Barral, Máximo Fjellerup, and José Vildoza. “You always feel comfortable with people with which you had previous experiences, not only in the national team. With Agustín, Pepo, and Maxi – we also played together in Bahía Basket – I feel comfortable, and that makes you feel at ease. I know José since we were in the Cordoba team at the age of 13.”

Vaulet's return to the Argentine team wasn’t an easy moment due to their defeat against Venezuela, 74-68, but his individual performance was positive. The small forward scored nine points in just eleven minutes. He achieved three two-pointers with his trademark powerful and quick drive toward the rim. That speed with which he moves from one side to another of the court in a heartbeat is one of the tools that Juampi will use to soar with the Argentine jersey.

Pablo Cormick
FIBA