Carlos Alberto Arroyo Bermudez (born July 30, 1979
in Fajardo, Puerto Rico) is a Puerto Rican
professional basketball player. Arroyo is the fifth
player from Puerto Rico to play in the NBA and has
become arguably the most successful of them in NBA
history. He is currently playing for the Orlando
Magic.
Arroyo has played in the NBA, NCAA, and the National
Superior Basketball League of Puerto Rico (BSN) with
the Cangrejeros de Santurce and Fajardo. Arroyo has
also played internationally in Spain. Arroyo was a
member of the Puerto Rican National Basketball Team
that most notably defeated the United States in the
2004 Olympic Games. He also represented his country
in the 2006 FIBA World Championship in Japan.
Arroyo began his career in the National Superior
Basketball League of Puerto Rico, where he debuted
with the Fajardo Cariduros and subsecuently played
for the Santurce Crabbers, where he was a teammate
of then starting center of the Puerto Rico National
Basketball Team, José Ortíz. During his
participation with the team the Crabbers won four
consecutive national titles in 1998, 1999, 2000,
2001 and 2003, winning five league championships in
six years.
Arroyo also studied in Florida International
University 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 this records is the all-time
lead in assists scored, 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
occassions. On January 5, 2007, Florida
International University presented a ceremony where
Arroyo's universitary number (30) was simbolically
retired to recognize his performance with the
institution's team.
After graduating from college, 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 Spain
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
where he saw action.
Arroyo's NBA stats in 371 games with 93 games
started are 2,591 points with a 7.0 PPG, 1,192
assists with a 3.2 APG, 619 rebounds with a 1.7 RPG,
207 steals with a 0.6 SPG, 17 blocks, .429 field
goal percentage, .794 free-throw percentage, and
.308 3-point percentage.
Carlos Arroyo was born and raised on Fajardo, Puerto
Rico. He graduated from Colegio Santiago Apostol in
Fajardo. Arroyo is married and has a daughter,
Gabriella Arroyo. On November 2, 2007 Carlos was
forced to miss two games with the Orlando Magic when
he had to make a emergency travel to Puerto Rico
because his daughter was suffering from Pneumonia.
