Juan Manuel Hurtado Pérez

Juan Manuel Hurtado Pérez, better known as Piti Hurtado, is a professional basketball coach, analyst and television commentator.

Born in the city of Cáceres on 24 May 1974, his professional career in the world of basketball began when he joined the now defunct Cáceres C.B. in the ACB league, where he became assistant coach from 2000 to 2002.

During the 2002–2003 season, he also collaborated with Utah University.

His first club as head coach was AB Mérida in the EBA league, which he coached between the 2003 and 2005 seasons.

Subsequently, in the 2005–06 season he signed for CAI Zaragoza in the LEB league as assistant coach, where he worked under the orders of Alfred Julbe.

In 2006, he opened an account on the streaming platform YouTube and began editing and uploading videos related to basketball, tactics and technique.

In 2007 he returns to Cáceres to be part of a new project aimed at recovering the elite basketball in the capital of Cáceres, initially as general manager he is part of Cáceres 2016 that starts the 2007–08 season in the LEB de Plata.

Hurtado returns to start the 2009/10 season as coach of the first team of Cáceres 2016 in LEB Oro, but the irregular start of the team (balance of 3 wins and 5 defeats) makes him resign after putting his position at the disposal of the club and not finding the expected support and also after deciding not to accept the position of general manager that was offered to him to continue being part of the Extremadura project.

In August 2013, he signed as coach of the Japanese team Levanga Hokkaido, becoming the first Spanish professional basketball coach to coach in the land of the rising sun.

In his first season, he achieved the best historical record of the Sapporo team.

Despite being out of the play-offs, only because of the basket-average, Levanga Hokkaido went from being an absolute loser to a play-off contender, achieving prestigious victories against almost all the big teams in the Japanese league (only Toshiba resisted them).

In December 2014, he was cut by Levanga Hokkaido, after a bad start to the league, with a record of 4 wins and 12 losses that left the team second to last in their conference.

In April 2015, Guaiqueries de Margarita, a member of Venezuela's Professional Basketball League (LPB), announced the hiring of Hurtado through the team's Twitter account.

In October 2015, he became a commentator on the Movistar+ de los partidos de la NBA en España.

The bad results lead to the dismissal of the coach, Fede Pozuelo, so Hurtado takes the position of head coach and manages to qualify Cáceres 2016 to play in the play-offs for promotion to the LEB Gold league, although the objective of promotion is not achieved.

However, after the disappearance of CB Alcudia, Cáceres 2016 acquires its rights to participate in the LEB Gold league, so during the 2008–09 season, Hurtado remains as coach of the Extremadura team in that category.

In this programme, he developed the section "La Pitipedia", which was quoted by the American network TNT in the NBA Conference Finals in 2018.

The Spaniard took the reins of the team with four games remaining in the regular season, with the team in 6th place in the standings (19 wins – 14 losses) and struggling to secure playoff qualification.

He replaced Puerto Rican Tony Ruiz.

Under Hurtado, the Guaiqueríes qualified for the Playoffs and advanced to the semi-finals of the Venezuelan Pro League, losing 4–1 to the Marinos de Anzoátegui.

Hurtado joined journalist Fran Fermoso, with whom he shared the Tuesday and Wednesday night broadcasts until 2019.

During this period he presented, together with Antoni Daimiel y Guille Giménez, the weekly competition review programme Generación NBA.

In the summer of 2019, he announces that he will join DAZN, where he will broadcast and commentate the 2019–20 EuroLeague.