Carlos Arroyo

Carlos Alberto Arroyo Bermúdez (born July 30, 1979) is a Puerto Rican former professional basketball player.

He played in the National Basketball Association with the Toronto Raptors, Denver Nuggets, Utah Jazz, Detroit Pistons, Orlando Magic, Miami Heat, and Boston Celtics.

He debuted with the Cariduros de Fajardo in 1996.

During his first year, he averaged 10.9 points per game, with a 52% of shooting efficiency.

The next year, he improved his game averaging 17 points and 5.5 assists per game.

That season, he also shot 42% from 3-point.

The next year, he played for the Cangrejeros de Santurce, where he was a teammate of then starting center of the Puerto Rican national basketball team, José Ortiz.

Arroyo studied in Florida International University (FIU) from 1998 to 2001, where he played for the campus' team, the Golden Panthers.

He was a four-year letterman in the university having completed his baccalaureate and played with the team four years, establishing several records in the team's history.

Among these records is: the all-time lead in assists, as well as the single season assist record, having made 459 successful passes.

Arroyo is also the only player in Florida International University to have scored more than six hundred points in a single season.

He is in the second global position in lifetime scoring, having scored 1,600 points throughout his university career, with an average of 16.0 points per game and 4.6 assists per game over his 100 games.

Arroyo was also selected as a member of the Sun Belt Conference's All-Star team on two separate occasions.

During his participation with the team, the Cangrejeros won four consecutive national titles in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2003, winning five league championships in six years.

In 2000, Arroyo averaged 17.1 points and 3.9 assists per game.

After graduating from FIU, Arroyo was signed by the National Basketball Association's Toronto Raptors for the 2001–02 NBA season, but was released in January 2002.

He then played briefly in the Spanish ACB League with TAU Cerámica before being signed by the Denver Nuggets in March of the same year.

He saw limited action with those two teams, playing seventeen games with the Raptors and twenty with the Nuggets before his initial NBA season was over.

He only played an average of 9.7 minutes per game during those thirty-seven games in which he saw action.

Arroyo joined the Utah Jazz for the 2002-03 NBA season.

He did not play much during his first year in Utah; he was the team's third string point guard behind John Stockton and Mark Jackson.

However, Arroyo watched and learned from Stockton and Jackson, and his time to play soon arrived.

Stockton retired shortly after the season ended, and Jackson joined the Houston Rockets during the offseason, leaving Arroyo as the starter for the 2003–04 season.

With the retirement of Stockton and the subsequent departure of Karl Malone to the Los Angeles Lakers, it was expected that the Jazz would suffer through a miserable season and sink to the bottom of the league.

However, to the surprise of many, the remaining Jazz players pulled together and kept the team competitive, even in the tough Midwest Division.

With Arroyo leading the attack, Utah finished with an impressive 42–40 record, narrowly missing a berth in the playoffs.

Arroyo was a member of the senior Puerto Rican national basketball team that defeated the United States at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games.

He also represented Puerto Rico at the 2006 FIBA World Championship in Japan.

On January 5, 2007, Florida International University presented a ceremony where Arroyo's university number (30) was symbolically retired to recognize his performance with the institution's team.

Arroyo began his professional career in the Baloncesto Superior Nacional of Puerto Rico when he was 17 years old.

In the 2008–09 season, he played for Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Israeli Basketball Premier League, winning the league's championship, and being named the Final's Most Valuable Player.

In 2009 he also was the Israeli Premier League Assists Leader.

He has also played professionally in Puerto Rico, Spain, and Turkey.

In May 2019, Arroyo was picked by Trilogy to play in the Big3, a 3-on-3 basketball league founded by rapper Ice Cube.

He played in that league for one season, and then turned his focus to music, releasing the international hit song, "Baila Reggaeton".

Carlos Arroyo was born and raised in Fajardo, Puerto Rico.

He is an identical twin, born along his brother Alberto.

Arroyo is a cousin of actor Benicio del Toro.

Arroyo graduated from Colegio Santiago Apostol in Fajardo.

Arroyo attended Brookwood School in Thomasville, Georgia, for his junior year in high school, where he averaged nearly 30 points and 10 assists per game.