Cleary’s journey from Spain’s third division to the EuroCup is a testament to resilience and belief
Harrison Cleary turns career-defining injury into EuroCup opportunity
Player Spotlight
6 Mins read
A single dive for a loose ball changed everything for Harrison Cleary. On November 20, 2021, while playing in Spain’s third division, Cleary collided with an opponent and suffered a separated shoulder. Lying on the court, he wondered if his professional basketball dream had just ended.
That injury forced Cleary to miss the rest of the season, but it also became the turning point in his career. The time away gave him clarity and a renewed determination to prove he belonged at the highest level he could reach.
Four years later, Cleary is doing exactly that as a key contributor for Neptunas Klaipeda in the BKT EuroCup. The 1.85-meter guard is averaging 5.6 points on 44.4% three-point shooting through his first 11 games, showing the resilience that brought him from Spain’s lower leagues to Europe’s second-tier competition.
Curiously enough, his top performance of 13 points and 3 assists came against Veolia Towers Hamburg - the club where the Oak Creek, Wisconsin, native came back to Europe and provided him his first chance to play in the EuroCup.
“It's extremely high level. It's a privilege to be able to play at that level. Not many guys will get that opportunity. I did have my stint in Hamburg, but the situation was definitely different. I wasn't a fully rostered player of Hamburg. It was a bit of an odd situation to where now I'm obviously a full member of Neptunus and have a larger role here than I did in Hamburg. So it's been great to play in this competition and play against some of the highest-level guards in Europe and seeing where you match up and putting your skills to the test,” said Cleary.
Rewind to 2021. The 1.85-meter guard was playing for Carbajosa in Spain and having a solid start to the season. He averaged 15.1 points on 46% three-point shooting to go with 3.0 rebounds and 2.1 assists in seven games.
That came after a real disappointment in his first season after finishing a wildly successful college career at the D2 University of Minnesota Crookston.
Cleary was unfortunate to graduate at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and declined an initial offer to play in the Spanish third division. After a long wait, he signed a two-month contract with Spanish second division side TAU Castello in October to fill in for an injured point guard. The player was not out nearly as long as expected and Cleary received minimal playing time when he returned.
Cleary left after his two months were up and in January 2021 landed at Almansa, which was also in Spain’s second division. But the club was asking him to be a true point guard and not be a scoring option. This for a player who averaged more than 22 points and between 2.3 and 4.2 assists over his four years in college.
Add to that the fact that Cleary really hadn’t played a major role in a game in nearly a year and he decided to leave after just four games and return home in February 2021.
"I remember the first thought in my mind when I was on the court was: ‘Oh wow, I'm gonna have to find a job and figure out what's next.'"
Cleary went down a level to the third division for the 2021-22 season with Carbajosa and was trying to get his footing again before the injury against Ponferrada in November 2021.
“I remember exactly what happened. It was a loose ball under the basket. I dove for it. My right arm was outstretched. He came from the right side. My shoulder just completely came out, and I remember the first thought in my mind when I was on the court was: ‘Oh wow, I'm gonna have to find a job and figure out what's next. I genuinely didn't know what was going to happen because I knew what my resume looked like from my rookie year. And I didn't know at that point the extent of the injury. But it felt bad,” he remembered.
“But once that initial shock goes away and I figured out what was wrong and we were going to go the surgery route and all that stuff, it was just like, okay, let's do it. And I'm going to figure it out one way or another and fight uphill to get back to where I think I belong.”
Cleary had shoulder surgery in late December and was back working with his basketball trainers around April.
Cleary called that injury the defining moment in his career thus far.
“It showed me how much I was willing to do for this and get where I thought I belonged. It directed me in a certain way to get to where I'm at now. If I play that whole season (in the third division), I would have finished it out as well as I had started it. And who knows what would have happened with my career. I probably would have stayed in Spain. I had a Spanish agent at the time, and that was kind of the route we were headed. It was just kind of this Spanish pipeline a little bit. Just a lot of things transpired at that time, mentally and career-wise, where it kind of redirected me in a different way.”
Cleary landed in Germany in 2023 at the third division club Rist Wedel, which has a cooperation with pro side Veolia Towers Hamburg and the coach of whom actually was interested in him from his time at college in Crookston.
Cleary ended up splitting time with Wedel and Hamburg and played four games in the German League as well as eight games in the EuroCup, including pouring in 19 points against Prometey Slobozhanske in the EuroCup Eighthfinals.
That experience and leading the German third division in scoring with 23.9 points per game helped him jump to Lahti Basketball in Finland for 2023-24, where he led the league in scoring at 22.9 points per game while also averaging 6.5 assists. Then last season, he stayed in northern Europe and played with Latvian side VEF Riga in the Basketball Champions League and the Latvian/Estonian League.
Those two seasons resulted in Cleary getting signed by Neptunas to play in the EuroCup. And he has an entirely different level of value and respect for the competition this time around. Much of that stems from the shoulder injury he suffered four years ago. A day he remembers vividly.