Hearing these random numbers of 32, 28,30,24,26,24 might be an option playing the Lotto on a boring afternoon when no basketball is on TV or when you were a child hearing a combination of these numbers during a pick up kid´s football game could also happen. When I look back at my childhood when my family would travel over Christmas to Boca Raton, Florida, I can remember countless football games on the beach with my friend David from New York city where he was dreaming of being a Joe Montana getting away from a cowboy and I had Dwight Clark dancing in my head making the famous catch in the back of the end zone beating the Dallas Cowboys 27-26 reaching the 49ers first Superbowl. Before every call certain numbers would be called before David would yell hut hut and if the numbers 32,28,30,24,26,24 were ever called is unknown, but one thing is for sure, for fanatic Fraport Skyliner fans these numbers were the big scoring games of Andrew Rautins when he played for Frankfurt in the 2012-2013 season and all resulted in wins. Rautins was signed for one season, but the ex NBA player who played 5 NBA games for the New York Knicks played his last game on December 29^th 2013 in a Frankfurt jersey against SC Rasta Vechta where he steered 10 points to the 70-67 victory before he was injured for the rest of the season. It would be unfair to rank a Rautins with the best that ever played for a Skyliners jersey simply because he only played 15 games, but in the short time he was there, he had some big games that reminded one of guys like Chris Williams and Dashaun Wood and what they were capable of doing. Rautins who played at Syracuse from 2005-2010 reaching the NCAA Sweet 16 and played at the 2010 World Championships also played in Spain for Lucentum Alicante, the D-league with Tulsa and last season with Openjobmetis Varese (Italy-Serie A) playing 28 games averaging 12.0ppg, 4.6rpg, 2.3apg, 1.0spg, FGP: 32.9%, 3PT: 39.5%, FT: 81.4%. This season he is playing with Royal Hali Gaziantep (Turkey-BSL) averaging 13,9ppg, 2,9rpg and 2,7apg in the Turkish league and in Europe Cup play averaging 15,5ppg, 4,2rpg and 3,0apg while shooting 46,5% from the parking lot. He may be classified mostly as a shooter, but he is an underrated passer and has a brilliant basketball IQ. It was more than two years since, the Canadian/American last tasted the rims in the Fraport arena and was back again wanting revenge for the 71-66 loss against Frankfurt in his living room, but couldn´t get it as ex teammate Quantez Robertson did a super job almost blanking him off the score board as the Fraport Skyliners defeated Royal Hali Gaziantep 91-79 extending their current winning streak to 9 games and to 11 in Europe Cup play and holding Rautins to afoot note of 3 points. If it hadn´t been for ex NBA player Jawad Williams who took the brunt of the production on his shoulder scoring 21 points, the Turkish team would have gone home losing by 30. After the loss, Rautins pulled an NBA, not talking, but his ex teammate and head coach did. “Rautins wasn´t happy that he fouled out so early. He was very motivated to play here again, but one can´t always have a great comeback. He was so hyped up and wanted to win very badly and play well, but it just wasn´t his day”, expressed ex Fraport Skyliner Anthony King who played 169 Beko BBL games. Fraport Skyliners head coach Gordon Herbert who always lauding the great player in Aaron Doornekamp would probably live in an igloo for a week if he had to just to get Rautins back in Frankfurt was pleased with how his team took the Canadian out of the game. “It was key taking him out of game. Quantez Robertson did a good job on him and we were lucky that he got in foul problems. He had been on a very hot streak as of late, but couldn´t find his rhythm against us”, stated Gordon Herbert.

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