Felipe Reyes · Biography

Felipe Reyes Cabanas was born on 16 March 1980 in Córdoba, Spain, and developed as a player in Madrid, at the Instituto Ramiro de Maeztu school and in the youth system of Club Baloncesto Estudiantes. A power forward, he spent 23 seasons in Spain’s Liga ACB: with Estudiantes from 1998 to 2004 and with Real Madrid from 2004 to 2021, where he served as captain. His brother, Alfonso Reyes, also played professionally.

Youth career and the golden juniors

He came through the youth ranks at Estudiantes, a club founded at the Ramiro de Maeztu school itself. With Spain’s youth teams, for whom he played 54 games, he won gold at the 1998 Under-18 European Championship and gold at the 1999 Under-19 World Championship, part of the generation of Pau Gasol and Juan Carlos Navarro. In 2000 he added bronze at the Under-20 European Championship.

Estudiantes (1998-2004)

He made his Liga ACB debut with Estudiantes in the 1998-99 season, playing four games. His minutes grew in the following years, and in 2000 he won the Copa del Rey with Estudiantes, his first professional trophy. After six seasons with the first team, he joined Real Madrid in the summer of 2004.

Real Madrid (2004-2021)

He arrived wearing number 14 and switched to 9 from his second season. In his first, 2004-05, Real Madrid won the Liga ACB. In 2007 he lifted the Eurocup and the league title, was named Finals MVP and made the All-ACB Team; that same year he received the FIBA EuroStar award. In 2009 he was voted ACB MVP. Under coach Pablo Laso came his longest run of trophies: the Copa del Rey and the Supercup in 2012, the league and the Supercup in 2013, again as Finals MVP, and the Copa and the Supercup in 2014. In May 2013 he lost the EuroLeague final in London to Olympiacos.

The 2014-15 season brought the biggest haul: Real Madrid won the 2015 EuroLeague, the league, the Copa del Rey and the Intercontinental Cup, while Reyes was named ACB MVP and made the All-EuroLeague First Team. Further league titles followed in 2016, 2018 and 2019, Copas in 2016, 2017 and 2020, Supercups in 2018, 2019 and 2020 and the 2018 EuroLeague, won in Belgrade. In June 2019 he played his 1,000th game for the club. On 24 June 2021 he said goodbye at an official ceremony held by Real Madrid, after 17 seasons with the team.

Playing style and records

A compact, physical big man, he built his game on positioning, offensive rebounding and steady work close to the basket. In March 2017 he passed Granger Hall with 4,293 rebounds to become the all-time leading rebounder in the Liga ACB; in November that year, with 1,604, he moved past Ioannis Bourousis in the EuroLeague. In May 2018 he reached 757 Liga ACB games, overtaking Rafael Jofresa. In February 2019, against Unicaja, he played his 779th game in Spain’s top flight and broke Joan Creus’s record. That same month he passed Juan Carlos Navarro as the player with the most games in the Copa del Rey. He was named to the All-ACB Team in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2015.

Spain national team

He played 236 games for Spain’s senior team between 2001 and 2016 and won ten medals. He started with bronze at EuroBasket 2001 and silver in 2003. In 2006 he was world champion in Japan. Then came silver at EuroBasket 2007, Olympic silver in Beijing in 2008, European titles in 2009, 2011 and 2015, silver at London 2012 and bronze at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, his last tournament with Spain.

Honours and awards

With Real Madrid he collected two EuroLeagues, seven Liga ACB titles, six Copas del Rey, six Spanish Supercups, one Eurocup and one Intercontinental Cup, on top of the 2000 Copa del Rey won with Estudiantes. Individually he was ACB MVP twice, in 2009 and 2015, and Finals MVP twice, in 2007 and 2013. In February 2022 the EuroLeague presented him with the EuroLeague Basketball Legend Award at the WiZink Center, before a Real Madrid-Barcelona game. In 2023 he was inducted into the Spanish Basketball Hall of Fame.