Puerto Rico said this Tuesday one of its “greatest athletes”, the legendary basketball player José ‘Piculín’ Ortiz, who died at 62 from colorectal cancer leaving an important legacy on and off the courts.

“Today Puerto Rico dawns with the loss of one of our greatest athletes in our history. Piculín filled us with joy on the court where in each game, each representation of Puerto Rico, carried with him the heart of an island,” wrote governor Jenniffer González.

In a message on his

Member of the International Basketball Hall of Fame, Ortiz competed in four Olympic Games (Seoul 1988, Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996 and Athens 2004), in the NBA with the Utah Jazz, and in Europe with Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, among other teams.

“The sports spirit of this legend lives in every young person who dreams of shining in sports, in every story that inspired and in every rec "I understand that united us as a people," said the governor, who will decree a national owner once the details of the funerals are known.

El Baloncesto Superior Nacional (BSN) assured on its Facebook account that Ortiz “always” will be in their hearts and alluded to his famous nickname ‘El Concorde’.

“May our eternal Concord rest in peace. The best player that our country has ever given and an emblem of our institution and Puerto Rican sports,” the SBN stated in its message.

For his part, former basketball player Raymond Dalmau commented that the news of the death left him “devastated” and took him by surprise, since the last time he had seen him he was feeling well despite the fact that he was suffering from cancer.

Dalmau, who matched Ortiz in the BSN as rivals and was later their leader in the national team, described the deceased in an interview with WKAQ-580 radio as “the best player that Puerto Rico has ever produced.”

“There was no way to beat the teams when Piculín was there,” said Dalmau, who added that Ortiz was “very friendly” and a “tremendous” human being.

For her part, the captain of the national women's basketball team, Pamela Rosado, highlighted that Ortiz's legacy "is not measured in words, it's felt in the heart of an entire people."

“Today was a great for us. A human being of those who are not repeated, of those who leave a deep mark on every life they touch. Thank you for t anto, for your essence, for what you gave, for what you taught and for how you made feel others,” Rosado wrote on his social networks.

From the Puerto Rico Olympic Committee, its president, Sara Rosario, assured that Ortiz was “much more than an extraordinary basketball player;

“Puerto Rico loses today one of its greatest athletes and a true symbol of what competing for our flag represents(…) His legacy will live forever in our history and in the heart of our people,” said Rosario.

In the same line, Jorge O. Sosa, commissioner of the Interuniversity Athletic League (LAI) underlined that Ortiz was “a giant of the court and of the heart, whose greatness transcended basketball and became a legacy for an entire people.”