height_ft weight_lb birth_place draft_year nationality career_end position article_title height_in birth_date image college name career_start
6 285 rosario , sinaloa 1996 mexican 2013 center horacio llamas
 11 17 july 1973 horacio llamas.jpg pima -lrb- 1994 -- 1996 -rrb- cc -lrb- 1992 -- 1994 -rrb- grand canyon horacio llamas 1996
horacio llamas

horacio llamas grey -lrb- born july 17 , 1973 -rrb- , known in non-spanish-speaking countries as horacio llamas , is a mexican former professional basketball player .
born in rosario , sinaloa , mexico , llamas moved to the united states as a teenager .
he played for two years at pima community college in tucson , arizona , where he earned arizona community college athletic conference all conference honors his freshman and sophomore seasons .
instead of attending an ncaa division i college , like most nba players , llamas chose ncaa division ii grand canyon university where he earned ncaa division ii player of the year honors during his senior season .
he played in the mexican league many years , he was named the mexican national team 's starting center , and he participated in such international events as the 1993 central american and caribbean games , held in ponce , puerto rico .
when llamas played at pima community college , he played well enough to make phoenix suns scouts feel impressed .
in 1996 , he was signed by the suns .
when he made his suns debut , he made history by becoming the first mexican to participate in an nba game .
he chose to wear jersey number 17 which is the date of his birthday .
llamas had an impact in the phoenix community , partly because of the large amount of hispanics who live there .
soon after he began playing with the suns , he was featured on the cover of the suns ' magazine , `` fastbreak '' .
hoping to keep on bringing hispanic fans to their home games , the suns acquired puerto rico 's daniel santiago soon after llamas was released .
llamas played in 20 games during his debut season , scoring 34 points for an average of 1.7 points per game , with 18 rebounds for 0.9 rebounds per game and 4 assists , for 0.2 assists per game .
he made his nba debut at reunion arena against dallas on march 2 , 1997 just after signing for the suns and played 4 minutes , scoring on his only attempt in a 109-108 win and played in most of the games .
his first career start saw him play a career best 24 minutes with 6 points , 4 reb , 1 ast and 1 stl in a 109-96 home win over the houston rockets .
in the 1997-98 , he played in eight games , three games in november , one game in february and four games in april , scoring 24 points for a total of 3.0 points per game , with 18 rebounds for a total of 2.3 rebounds per game , and 1 assist , for 0.1 assists per game and never saw any more than 8 minutes on the court .
he had an nba best 7 points including a 3-pointer in his final game for the suns in a 123-93 thrashing at houston in the final game of the regular season .
after 28 games in two seasons with the suns , llamas was released after the 97-98 season .
his production totals may have been adversely affected by his not playing many minutes as a member of the suns : in his 28 games , he only saw action a total of 143 minutes , for an average of 5 minutes played per game .
on the other hand , local newspapers reported during his stint that his conditioning was said to be poor , at least initially .
llamas continued on playing basketball , playing in various international leagues as well as in the mexican league .
in 2004 , llamas tried to make a comeback to the nba with the milwaukee bucks .
the bucks had santiago playing at center , however , and they decided not to sign llamas .
horacio llamas ended his career with the pioneros de quintana roo in the mexican basketball league .
he then became an assistant coach with the team .
