Have you seen the LBA Finals? What is your evaluation from inside the world of basketball but outside from the Legabasket organization? How do you rate the series from a purely basketball point of view and from the point of view of spectacle and perception of the product on a global level?
I watched all 7 games. It was an exciting series, I liked it. The feeling is generally that, talking about it from afar, the indicators are growing. It seems to me that this 7-games-series has been very nice. It seems to me that it is a path of growth: from the outside it was certainly exciting. Knowing too many if not all the protagonists, I personally experienced it a little too particular to be completely objective, but overall it seems to me that a better job has been done even than in the recent past. Well! I’m almost sorry that LBA Finals will come back at best of 5 next year, but this series was beautiful. Both teams deserved to get to Game 7: Milan had that extra something to win, I think they deserved it for how the season was and what they did in the Finals.
The EuroCamp in Treviso is back: many fans rejoiced, it was nice! What prospects can there be for the future of the event?
It was very important that a company like adidas understood that bringing an event like EuroCamp back into the world of basketball was an incredible opportunity. This talent showcase has always had importance and charm, it has always brought the best talents on the catwalk. It was important to recreate the conditions of the past, to see Treviso again at the center of a moment of the season… all very nice! Beyond the quality and commitment of the former NBA players involved in the Camp, their constructive and meaningful participation was positive. To see Rajon Rondo with that dedication, to hear Tony Parker talk about the importance of this type of event and that a young person can take home, was a great moment. Looking ahead, we must first hope that the path taken will allow us to redo and re-present the event: it was the first time in the history of the EuroCamp that an event was also held for women, an absolutely new Camp! How much it conditions the NBA dream in many things in international basketball can also be seen from this: to put together many young talents in conjunction with the Draft Workout, in order to position them at best when entering the League, also a condition for the possibility of bringing all the talent available for such an event. It is important that the event returns, that Treviso returns, that an important and quality brand like adidas is found. You have to move forward, because for basketball it’s important to have moments like that.
Gigi Datome retires from basketball, not necessarily like a bolt from the blue but still with a considerable impact. An anecdote, a curiosity from those who have lived it closely that best represents the Gigi as man and professional?
I was lucky enough to spend 5 years with Gigi, to manage him as a player. He is a unique person, a person who is really different from the idea that one can have stereotyped of a basketball player. The moments lived together would be many, even the most intimate and particular. I could tell you about when he invited me to his home in Istanbul to let me taste some Sardinian specialties: he knows very well that I like bottarga, I love Sardinian cuisine… Beyond what might have been on the table, you would be surprised to enter his apartment and see on the silent drawing room that he had made. He showed you others still being completed, and maybe as soon as he finished eating he would start strumming with the guitar. The neighbor arrives to ask him for something and he talks quietly in Turkish: the quality of the person Gigi went beyond what he showed and showed until the last MVP on the field. A person of very particular quality, who does not have enough time to explain everything that means. Reading his book gives an idea of how eclectic, profound and immaculate is the person Gigi Datome.
