Por Redaccion 
Double recognition for Unicaja Basketball in the 37th edition of the Gigantes Awards Gala. The sports director Juanma Rodríguez and the head coach of the first team Ibon Navarro have been awarded in the categories of Best Sports Management Giant and Coach Giant 2024, respectively, at a gala held this Tuesday at the Endesa headquarters in the capital of Spain.
Juanma Rodríguez, who received the award from Jaime de Jaraiz, president and CEO of LG Iberia, thanked Gigantes and José Ortiz for the recognition, as well as Unicaja, "especially the person who trusted in me: Antonio Jesús López Nieto. I was going to stay in Seville, with Betis, and he called me for this project and I have to be very grateful to him, as I never thought in my wildest dreams that in this second stage we would achieve everything we are achieving. Thanks to the passion he instills in us and the freedom he gives us to work. Also thanks to Ibon Navarro and his technical staff, whose work is spectacular, and especially to Ibon for being someone very easy to work with, a normal guy, and for his passion, charisma, and method. And thanks to that group of players who, as I said in Las Palmas the other day, we have a treasure that we must take care of. They are an exceptional group of players that you should know at a personal level, that is one of our great secrets. And finally, I share the award with the rest of my colleagues in sports management. We have a very good Liga Endesa thanks to the sports directors."
On the other hand, Ibon Navarro, who received the award from Jose Bógas, CEO of Endesa, thanked Gigantes and Endesa for the award and then highlighted that "in the last few hours I see a lot of talk about how the Unicaja players function as a team and the technical staff is no different. Alberto Miranda, Paco Aurioles, Andrija Gavrilovic, Ángel Sánchez-Cañete, Javi Salvo, Marcos Cerveró, Arantxa Pareja, Diego Iván Ruiz, Jon Cortaberría, Mario Barbara… I come to collect this award on behalf of everyone, this is a job of many people."
Career Paths
The story of Juanma Rodríguez has been linked to the Club for much of his professional career. A man of the house, he took on the role of sports director in the early 90s after the merger of Maristas and Caja de Ronda, contributing to the successful growth of Unicaja, from the legendary runner-up in the ACB League against Barça in 1995 to its subsequent consolidation in the elite of Spanish basketball, winning the Korac Cup (2001), the King’s Cup (2005), the ACB League (2006), and third place in the Euroleague Final Four (2007).
After an 11-year hiatus, Juanma Rodríguez returned to Unicaja Basketball in 2021 under the leadership of current president Antonio Jesús López Nieto, being the main architect of the reconstruction of the project with the first team that has conquered two King’s Cups (Badalona 2023 and the one from last weekend in Gran Canaria), a BCL (2024), a FIBA Intercontinental Cup (2024), and an Endesa Supercup (2024), as well as reaching the Final Four of the BCL in 2023 and the final of the Endesa Supercup (2023). In total, eight of the nine titles that Unicaja has bear his signature. Additionally, he is also responsible for the women’s section, Unicaja Mijas, which achieved promotion to the Women’s Challenge League in 2023 and is currently among the top positions in the category this season.
As for Ibon Navarro, the Vitorian coach joined the Unicaja coaching staff on February 10, 2022, with the season already past its halfway point. Endorsed by Juanma Rodríguez, his arrival revolutionized the locker room, allowing, first and foremost, to straighten out the results of that season and then, with the work done jointly with Rodríguez in the sports field, to build a recognizable project that is yielding great results in Spanish and continental basketball. In two and a half seasons in Malaga, Ibon Navarro can already boast of being the coach with the most titles in the history of the Club, with five (two King’s Cups, a BCL, a FIBA Intercontinental Cup, and an Endesa Supercup), as well as accumulating 129 victories in 177 games, making him the coach with the highest winning percentage in our history, at 72.88%.
Now, a few days after achieving a new success with the Club, they receive this outstanding recognition from the leading basketball magazine in our country. Congratulations to both and to Gigantes magazine on their 40th anniversary!