MURCIA (Spain) - Life's a challenging opponent to battle sometimes. Its unpredictability and uncertainty can draw a line for everybody's future from the first breaths.
Growing up in Havana, Cuba, in the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the start of the 21st century is one of those fate choices that are entrusted to you, without anything you can do about it. There's a plot for you, but you can change the narrative.
Making your first steps along the streets of Santo Suarez, in the 10th of October neighborhood, can shape reminders from the past. When Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, one of the Cuban heroes, redacted a historic manifest on that date, in 1868.
Destiny created a screenplay for that island surrounded by the Caribbean Sea. However, events that occurred throughout the centuries eventually changed it. It has always happened.
Basketball is a way of thinking between colorful houses, the smell of cigars, and waves of freedom throughout the islands in that angle of the globe: Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba, where another protagonist of the plot made his way out in 1991.
How to play the game, with nothing
"We were born with nothing," Howard Sant-Roos tells the Basketball Champions League website when thinking about his early days in Santo Suarez, Havana.
That’s where everything started.
"We were poor, all living inside the same house: my uncles, cousins, aunts, grandparents, my mom, myself. It was a demanding and severe situation for me."
So, what did life plan out for a young guy living early experiences along the streets of the Cuban capital? His path seemed linked from the very beginning to basketball. Forget the usual ten players on the floor, however.
He started to love that rounded ball by listening to stories told by his dad, uncles, and sister, all basketball players. In the end, watching the game take place wasn't easy.
"Every Cuban who has grown up playing basketball had the idea of who Michael Jordan was, who the Chicago Bulls were. But to watch a whole NBA season... that wasn't happening. Maybe one or two games sometimes."
His closest ones quickly became the first basketball idols for the newest member of the Sant-Roos family, who wanted to prove himself on the Havana courts too. Street's courts.
"Moving to professional basketball, I can still recall what I had in my street basketball mentality, having played so many games 1vs1, 2vs2, or 3vs3," he says.
"There, you’re more free, more options to play on offense; but on my side, focusing on defense, you need to give everything you take because your opponent has so much space to take advantage of. I was able to transmit that kind of feeling on 5vs5 basketball too."
Filling his childhood days with street basketball seemed natural. Sticking with the same place, the same friends, the same habits. Like a routine ritual. He surely wasn't thinking that Cuba could have been only the start of a multi-adventure trip.
That's where his unique defensive abilities have brought Howard Sant-Roos: everywhere. Italy, Germany, Czechia, Türkiye, Greece, Russia, Spain. Everywhere in Europe.
How to play the game, everywhere
Closing the 20th century, Cuba was a land of contradictions. Shaped by the waves, it should have opened its arms to the world. But opportunities weren't emerging.
Howard was probably destined to turn into a cigar maker. That's what his plot said, keeping his family's tradition alive. Instead, watching Santo Suarez from up in the sky once adolescence was greeted, he moved to Italy. Changing his narrative.
"I personally believe that basketball's always basketball. It's always about that rounded ball, shooting it into the arc and scoring as much as possible; in my case, defending as much as possible and doing my job," he opens when asked about his eventful career.
"What I've brought with me alongside my journey was the way every place and every person I've met through them live their lives and their cultural approach. Each head coach and player are different, every system is different in basketball: each and any of us adapt to it, or those systems adapt to you depending on which kind of player you are."
"But more than basketball, I've embraced the experience of meeting new people who aren't simply basketball players, but friends. Every place I've been taught me something. I've learned how to live there. I opened wide my cultural view of the world."
However, Cuba has always stuck there, in his thoughts. And since 2024, he has been representing the national team in the FIBA AmeriCup 2025 Qualifiers.
"I think every Cuban who leaves the country always keeps that piece of desire of coming back and doing our best to help our land. I grew up watching the Cuban national team, the ones playing for it, and I left very early," he recalls.
"I never got the real opportunity of representing what Team Cuba really means. Being able to do it now, to compete and put on that jersey, is special. More than an opportunity, it was a dream to have those four letters on my chest. In the future, I will be able to tell my sons and my grandsons that I did it and fought for it."
Moreover, his debut coincided with a historic win, significant for obvious basketball but also for non-basketball reasons.
"Having beaten Team USA and even having the slightest of opportunities of qualifying is another goal. Achieving it would be outstanding."
In that first game for the national team, winning 81-67 against the United States, he had alongside him former back-to-back BCL champion Jasiel Rivero.
From the same land, it's worth mentioning other former BCL players, like Yorman Polas Bartolo, Javier Justiz, and Karel Guzman. Every one of these Cuban players made their way through Europe, mostly displaying their offensive capabilities.
If there's one aspect where Howard Sant-Roos has been excelling for years now, however, is the defensive end. And he was conscious about it from the beginning.
How to play the game, on defense
While the inner desire of a basketball player will always be to aim for the bucket, putting up two or three points that could be beneficial for the ultimate collective goal, at the final buzzer, there wouldn't be champions without defense.
That's something Howard Sant-Roos always keeps in mind first. Something he learned "since minute zero," with a closer look back in 2012, when he was involved in Casalpusterlengo's first team's practices despite still being part of the youth team.
"I always had the feeling of being part of that squad not for making points, but because the head coach needed me to display my best abilities on defense. He wanted me to put pressure on the best ones, not being the wake asset within the practice," he remembers.
"You need to defend, steal the ball, kill this guy. I need you to put him in danger because that's how he will learn to escape problems in games, the coach kept telling me."
"That's when I started thinking that if I was able to defend one, two, three, or even more players, I would have gained my space and time on the floor, regardless of how I played offensively. I learned how fundamental defense was and I haven't believed differently ever since."
Defense wins championships, and that's a mantra in every sport's locker rooms. What defense wins too is people's reluctance to give chances. Sant-Roos was given one.
"If you wanna stay on the court, you need to give your best on the defensive end. My career has been like that: everyone knows I'm not the best on offense, but I believe I've never taken a step back on defense, proving it every night. The defense gave me a career."
A career worth several titles, including the FIBA Intercontinental Cup 2019 with AEK. But also, personal achievements, such as being named Best Defender of the Year in the 2023-24 season of the Basketball Champions League, with UCAM Murcia.
If stealing the ball is an art, Howard Sant-Roos is the painter of that work. And numbers prove it, as he recently reached an important milestone.
With two steals collected in the most recent matchup in the competition with his former team ERA Nymburk, he converted himself into the record holder for most all-time steals collected in the BCL at 119, surpassing JDA Bourgogne Dijon legend David Holston.
"Stealing the ball, being aggressive, staying in the passing lane: all these things make sure the other team doesn't play comfortably, that they don't stick to themselves. Every day, five times per week, they repeat the same play. Over, and over, and over," he says.
"Until they find perfection, or what they believe makes them unbeatable. And then here I come, trying to steal, making sure I'm aggressive on the passing lane. They have to modify the play they had in mind, and their comfort zone disappears."
Stealing the ball and putting your best on the defensive end is something Howard Sant-Roos has been executing on a weekly basis for several years now.
"Nobody wants to play basketball with somebody putting pressure on you, using their hands to discomfort yourself and aiming at stealing the ball off you all the time."
He knows what kind of effect that approach really instills in the opponents.
"Getting into someone's mind can be precious. All of a sudden, they can't move to one side, they start walking slowly because they now have one more factor to think of. You're controlling the situation," he affirms.
While you can certainly improve on certain specific aspects of the game, the Cuban forward truly believes that most of the defensive efficiency comes out naturally.
"It's all about instincts. When I'm in the moment, I execute. Playing basketball for so many years now makes you grab stuff that you simply didn't have years ago. The game's happening, and I can read how to execute a defensive play."
A good defender, moreover, doesn't get better only by facing high-level offensive players during games, but also by having them around in practice, being teammates.
During his first professional appearances with Braunschweig in the 2012-13 season, he played with Dennis Schroder, who went on to being drafted the following summer in the NBA. Guarding the future MVP of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 doesn't happen every day.
"Dennis Schroder was the first player I've met who was incredibly hard to stop due to his quickness and velocity of execution. He made me improve my lateral movements and my reflections, how I react," he said of the German national team's captain.
While the current owner of that German club was all about straight rapidness rather than capable of quickly changing pace, he had other teammates who excelled in such aspects.
"I also had teammates who were slower, but with a killing change of pace and rhythm: Keith Langford and Nemanja Nedovic helped me tremendously in practice, making myself a better defender."
How to play the game, in Murcia
Having now played overseas basketball for more than a decade, Howard Sant-Roos can't count on recent memories from Cuba, excluding the national team chapter.
Obviously missing his family members, dear friends, and closest ones, there's one more thing he would like to confront himself with from his childhood days in Havana.
"I've always carried with me the need for sunshine," he says. "You can’t put a smile on your face on cloudy days."
If he always displays seriousness on his court, outside he's all about smiling and having fun.
This is one of the reasons why he loves Murcia, where he has been since the summer of 2023.
The sun, there, shines more often than usual. Especially last season, which turned into a historic one for the team coached by Sito Alonso. With a group full of new faces, they reached the Copa del Rey Final Eight, the BCL Final Four, winning third spot, too, and the Finals of the Spanish Liga Endesa.
"With eight new players coming in, to begin that way and win games in almost every competition was something unbelievable, wasn't it?" he rhetorically asked.
"I never had something similar before, jumping into a new team, a new group, and being this successful already. We've had thousands of emotions between players, coaching staff, and fans. Everybody."
Howard Sant-Roos' undeniable support came especially on the defensive end, as proven by the award delivered to him in Belgrade.
Among the ones celebrated during the Awards Ceremony, there was also Dylan Ennis, named into the BCL All-Second Team for the third time in his career, having done so with Zaragoza too. What surprised the Cuban forward of Dylan was something else.
"I didn't expect Dylan Ennis to be this good on defense. He's not given the credit he rightfully deserves. Since he plays so well on the offense and has the pressure of scoring 15-20 points per game, he would naturally make mistakes on the defensive end."
UCAM Murcia's charismatic and offensive leader wasn't the only teammate that left Sant-Roos impressed with his skills on the defensive end.
"Another name that naturally comes to my mind is Jonah Radebaugh. Considering how good he is offensively; I wasn't expecting him to be this good on defense too."
"He puts his foot down, and presses the passing lines, and those are things I like to see in someone who plays defense, being good at it. Normally, the ones who are good on offense aren't this good on defense. But Jonah is one of those who has it in both."
After all, since his days with MHP RIESEN Ludwigsburg, having to defend elite scorers like Sylvain Francisco or Joe Ragland in the 2021-22 Basketball Champions League Final Four, the American Montenegrin guard has done it all on multiple levels.
"Offensively, if he has a good night, he can score 20-30 points and at the same time stop the most dangerous offensive threats on the opposing team. That impressed me a lot."
Repeating this early the success collected throughout the 2023-24 season would have been extremely difficult. But as one player's narrative can change quickly, a team's trajectory could as well. Midway through the 2024-25 campaign, things have changed.
In the second game played during the BCL Round of 16, Sito Alonso's team suffered an 85-70 road defeat in a familiar place for Sant-Roos.
After facing his former team, he couldn't praise the job done by the Czech champs enough.
"They're an excellent team that has incredible energy for 40 minutes. They do it all, and they do it very well," he says about ERA Nymburk.
"Coach [Francesco Tabellini] is doing a great job in managing the rotations, their resource management is well-done because they always keep the same level of intensity and aggressiveness."
"That's how you always keep the energy high on the floor, choosing the right players for the right moments. They have solid, young, and hungry players: that has always been done in Nymburk since I remember. They wanna win and go ahead, with players who want to make a name for themselves in European basketball."
Despite not being in Gran Canaria fighting for the Copa del Rey, and not having classified among the first eight teams in the first part of the ACB season, Howard Sant-Roos sees more brightness through Murcia's sunshine rather than clouds.
"There's still a long way to go. Just because we haven't reached the Copa del Rey, or we lost two games in BCL we shouldn't keep our heads down and say that we have reached our ceiling. We have to keep fighting because nothing is written and moving forward."
"Competing, reaching the Final Four, and extending our season even more depends only on ourselves. We're an excellent team, can fight and achieve such things," he believes.
Waiting to change once again Murcia's narrative, aiming at returning to the BCL Final Four, Howard Sant-Roos has cemented his defensive legacy even more, putting his name among the great record-holders of the competition. Such as the blocks' king Michale Kyser.
If stealing balls is an art, the Cuban forward is the artist. Blowing the cigar's smoke under the sun, Howard Sant-Roos could brush other defensive masterpieces.