Tiago Splitter Remembers Brazilian Basketball Legend Oscar Schmidt: 'Everybody Loved Him'

📍SAN ANTONIO — In a few hours, Tiago Splitter will become the first Brazilian ever to coach an NBA playoff game when the Trail Blazers' first-round series against the Spurs tips off.

On his heart and on his mind will be Oscar Schmidt, the greatest basketball player ever to come from his home country, who passed away on Friday at the age of 68.

You may not know who Schmidt is, because he never played in the NBA. But in every other part of the world, there is no player in history more decorated or respected for his accomplishments in international basketball.

That's especially true in his native Brazil, where he played in five Olympics for the national team and won medals in 12 international tournaments over nearly two decades from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s.

"He was a 6'10 guy who could really shoot the basketball," Splitter told me on Sunday morning at the Blazers' shootaround ahead of Game 1 in San Antonio. "Quick trigger and unconscious, which is common now but back then, wasn't a thing still. But he would be shooting 10 or 15 threes a game. Now that's normal, but back then, he was the only guy doing that and scoring a lot."

He isn't lying that Schmidt, nicknamed "The Holy Hand," was a prolific scorer. Between national-team play and a 29-year professional career in Brazil, Spain and Italy, Schmidt scored 49,973 points. This was believed to be the most points in the history of basketball worldwide, and that record stood for decades until LeBron James surpassed it in 2024.

Splitter's first encounter with Schmidt came when he was eight years old.