José Calderón (basketball)

José Manuel Calderón Borrallo (born September 28, 1981) is a Spanish basketball executive and former player who is a special advisor for the Cleveland Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

He played professionally for 21 years including 14 seasons in the NBA, primarily with the Toronto Raptors

After playing for Diputación Foral Alava, Calderón joined Lucentum Alicante (Spanish Second Division) in 1999, and he led his team to the ACB (Spanish First Division).

The team had to return to the second division because of fierce competition.

This helped Calderón adapt to the competition, and catalyzed an improvement to his game.

In 2001, Calderón joined ACB team Fuenlabrada.

He averaged 9.7 points, and 1.7 assists in 18.6 minutes per game, and shot 83.2% from the free throw line.

By the end of the season, he joined the Spain national team.

In 2002, he played for the senior Spain national team in the 2002 FIBA World Championship at Indianapolis, where his team ended up in fifth place.

After the summer, Calderón signed with TAU Vitoria.

Calderon played three seasons with Tau Vitoria.

His team won the Spanish Basketball King's Cup, and were also runners-up in both the Liga ACB (Spanish League) and the EuroLeague.

In 2002–03, he averaged 7.5 points, 2.4 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 1.1 steals in the EuroLeague.

In 2003–04, he averaged 7.2 points, 1.4 rebounds, 2.0 assists, and 1.1 steals in the EuroLeague.

In 2004–05, he averaged 11.6 points, 3.4 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.5 steals in the EuroLeague.

Calderón entered the NBA when former Raptors GM Rob Babcock persuaded the Spanish guard to sign with the Toronto Raptors on August 3, 2005.

Known as a talented playmaker, he struggled with his shooting in his first year in the NBA.

By the end of the 2005–06 season, he was ranked third among all rookies in assists with 4.5 per game.

He finished the season with 64 played games, having started in 11 of them.

He averaged 5.5 points, 4.5 assists, 2.2 rebounds and an assists-per-turnover ratio of 2.85.

With the Spain national team, he won a FIBA World Cup title in 2006, two Olympic silver medals in 2008 and 2012, as well as a bronze medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Throughout the 2006–07 season, Calderón played primarily as backup to T. J. Ford, turning in solid numbers from the bench.

As acknowledged by coach Sam Mitchell as well as his teammates, Calderón's form was instrumental to the Raptors' push for a playoff spot, and later, the Atlantic Division title.

He ended his regular season with improved averages of 8.8 points and 5.1 assists per game and .525 in field goal percentage, even though he had less playing time compared to his rookie season.

Calderón earned an All-EuroBasket Team selection in 2007.

José Calderón was born and raised in the town of Villanueva de la Serena, in Spain.

His main inspiration for basketball came from his father, who used to play basketball for his hometown's team, Doncel La Serena.

Calderón received an offer to play professional basketball after he won a junior team championship.

In the 2007 NBA Playoffs, Calderón played in all of Toronto's games in the series against the New Jersey Nets, but the Raptors were defeated 4–2.

Calderón averaged 13.0 points and 5.3 assists per game in his first NBA playoff season.

Toronto continued to deploy Ford and Calderón in tandem for the point guard position to good effect.

Ford was injured for several games in November and December and the Spaniard stepped in with impressive performances.

In three games against the Memphis Grizzlies, Cleveland Cavaliers and Chicago Bulls, Calderón provided 37 assists while committing only three turnovers.

14 games into the season, he was also leading the league in assist-to-turnover ratio with 5.67 to 1, but even so, he said: "But how I feel about the team right now is that we need T.J. Ford [for the next game]."

35 games into the season, the Spaniard increased the turnover ratio to 6.15 to 1, setting him on course to break an NBA record (he went to end the season as the league-leader with 5.38 to 1).

He shot at least 50% on field goals, 40% on three-pointers, and 90% on free-throws, and is sometimes listed as a member of the NBA's 50–40–90 Club, even though he was sixteen free-throws shy of attaining the NBA league minimum number of makes in this category.

By mid-season, he was touted as a possibility for making the All-Star reserve team.

Even after Ford returned from injury for the final third of the campaign, Calderón was able to keep his place in the starting lineup.

with whom he set an NBA record for the highest free throw percentage in a season (98.1% in 2008/09).

He also won a EuroBasket title in 2011, two silver medals in 2003 and 2007 as well as a bronze in 2013.