INTRO: IS THE ITALIAN BASKETBALL FUTURE SO BRIGHT?
The 2022 NBA Draft took place on June 23rd at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
A thrilling evening highlighted by the presence of three Italians among the 58 players chosen. In addition to Banchero, who was selected first overall pick by the Orlando Magic, Gabriele Procida was selected 36th by the Detroit Pistons and Matteo Spagnolo was selected 50th by the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The one-of-a-kind event shed light on the current state of Italian basketball and the NBA prospects set to emerge from “Il Bel Paese” in the coming years: can we be certain that the future is as bright as it appears?
PROFILES:
BANCHERO- 1st ITALIAN OVERALL PICK AFTER 16 YEARS
The Magic surprised everyone on Thursday by selecting Banchero first, despite being heavily linked to Jabari Smith Jr.
Banchero, an outstanding power forward who spent last season at Duke, has had Italian nationality since 2020 and has stated his desire to play for Italy, which he has already come close to doing in a FIBA window. His mother is a former professional basketball player from the United States and his Italian father played football. The two met at the University of Washington, but Paolo turned down the opportunity to follow in their footsteps, instead choosing to cross the country and attend Duke.
Without any doubt Paolo is the best offensive player of this NBA Draft class: a game creator, true scorer who has a thousand weapons to break into the opposing defense from the wing position, combining great physical strength, exhilarating body and foot control, an excellent skillset and a technical background that allows him a wide range of solutions. The future “azzurro” has an exciting ability to create a shot off the dribble that makes anyone wonders if we’re talking about a very agile or an oversized winger. The variety with which he manages to score and create for others from the medium and short range is incredible and he has showed us how much is working to expand this range of action during the recent games. For the last years, the 2002-born has been putting in a lot of work and attention to his body, resulting in a lack of mobility, agility, and speed. His defensive profile is questionale indeed despite Paolo has natural instinct and feeling for the game.
PROCIDA- QUALITY SHOOTER WITH SIZE
Procida spent 5 years in Cantù (3 with the youth sector + 2 with the first team) and 1 year with Fortitudo Bologna in the Italian First Division before being drafted 36th overall pick by the Blazers and sent to Detroit. After showing some promising development over the last year, the Italian SG brings great positional size and projects himself as a quality shooter. The Italian wing is bouncy in space and has good size for a wing prospect at 6-foot-7 with a wingspan of 6-8. Procida fits a specific mold in the NBA as a dynamic shooter; the “Pallacanestro Cantù” product is a 3&D type of player. He’s a stash candidate who won’t be in the NBA for a while and will likely continue his career in Europe. Alba Berlin, a Euroleague team, recently expressed interest in him.
SPAGNOLO- THE ITALIAN PRODIGY
The third Italian drafted on Thursday was Matteo Spagnolo. The Apulian guard was selected 50th overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Unlike Procida, the former Stellazzurra player is still under contract with Real Madrid, the 2018 Spanish Champions, who owns him and requires a buyout agreement to release him. Before leaving for Italy to get the court time he seemed unlikely to get in the Spanish capital last season, Los Blancos handed him a three-year contract. Spagnolo had long been regarded as one of Madrid’s brightest young prospects. He will most likely have a new loan experience after his loan at Vanoli Cremona last year.
The 19-year-old, who stands 6ft 5in, is a top playmaker with superb game management, fine vision, and shooting ability that he has perfected to the point of becoming a reliable marksman from nearly any distance. In defense, he has a talent for exploiting his height and power to get an edge over opponents. Spagnolo has long been regarded as a prodigy, dating back to his professional signing with Real Madrid at the age of 15 and subsequent debut at the age of 17. He is an average athlete who struggled on defense, but his positional size and combo-guard skill set make him an intriguing flier at this position.
TEAMS AND THEIR FIT
BANCHERO- UNQUESTIONABLE OFFENSIVE VALUE, WILL HE BE TARGETED FOR MISMATCHES ON THE DEFENSIVE END?
The Magic were able to keep their true intents hidden almost until the very end, which was a complete surprise. Going back in time, Andrea Bargnani was the last player with an Italian passport to be picked first overall in 2006. Orlando has signed the No. 1 offensive prospect which makes Banchero the right size for the Magic, who finished a cycle of NBA choices seeking for potential and technical upside to take on a guy who is already extremely mature.
Paolo is 6 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 250 pounds with great passing ability, a fluid shot creation – enough touch to project him as an elite perimeter shooter- and a full bag of tricks in the class. The Duke alumnus is a true mismatch nightmare who will continue to be productive at the NBA level. The main concern with him is his defense, where he lacks speed and quickness. He will be harassed on defense since his first NBA games because to his weak closeouts and questionable moving habits in space. Given his stature, power, and IQ, he has the ability to reach a level where that does not occur.
PROCIDA- STASH WORTH INVESTING
Given how congested the Pistons’ roster already is, Detroit picked Procida as an overseas stash.
The shooting is consistent. He does it on the go, with genuine balance, and in easily transferable ways to demonstrate how he’d be used in the NBA.
Procida is an unusual prospect since it is difficult to find exceptional shooters of legitimate size. He has some genuine promise that might convert him into an NBA player as he grows stronger and continues to become more functional as a result of it on a minute-by-minute basis in the game in Europe.
SPAGNOLO- CREATIVE PLAYER WITH A FUTURE IN EUROPE
It’s difficult to find players with this type of creative thinking who have previously had some professional success. Spagnolo has been a fantastic prospect throughout his career and took that next step this past season while on loan from Real Madrid. He’s huge for a guard, which should allow him some leeway. He should be able to develop even better with the ball as he grows into that frame physically, since he can keep players on his hip and protect them from the ball.
Like Procida, Spagnolo is a good stash choice. There is still work to be done on his shooting off the catch, but if the Timberwolves are patient, this might come out pretty nicely. He may not be athletic enough for the NBA, but he has a great shooting stroke. The Wolves will send him abroad.
IS THE ITALIAN BASKETBALL FUTURE AS BRIGHT AS IT APPEARS?
The selection of three Italians in the 2022 NBA Draft provides young people and the country’s sports future optimism. For the last several days, basketball fans have been satiated by reading newspaper articles or watching television shows on their beloved sport. Life-changing experiences resulting from hard effort have always inspired and influenced people, which is why Draft evenings are so meaningful for everyone.
The Italian basketball team achieved a major goal. On the other side, there are genuine doubts about what the future holds. The epidemic period reduced more than ever the resources spent in the sports industry: sponsors are unwilling to be engaged for such a large expenditure, the Basketball games TV rights property is a rebus every year, and there are no stable infrastructures to organize a sporting event (making the right exceptions). The clubs aim at winning as many games as possible with the greatest team possible (made of 90 percent mature and ready players), rather than developing and providing a stage for young stars, who are keen on playing abroad: American High Schools and Colleges above all.
The initial stage of a player’s growth is to join an Academy, which may educate him the principles of the game, improve his present skill set, and provide him with adequate room to succeed at the juvenile level. In Italy Stellazzura has been the first one to embrace this attitude, becoming the starting point for players from all over the world to begin playing basketball at the highest stage possible, turning their passion into a real job. From Rome, it swiftly became a case study for clubs around the country, as they began to invest in youth development. Mentionable examples are Bassano and College Borgomanero, two different styles with the same goal: to create basketball players. The Veneto School recruits worldwide, whereas Borgomanero began with the intention of developing only domestic players (mainly youths from “Piemonte,” the region in which the academy is located), with a little shift in emphasis in recent year with the establishment of the “College Prep School.”
In Italy, the most important stage for young players to perform is the “Eccellenza” Championships and, in the best-case scenario, international tournaments such as ANGT, EYBL, and so on. Considering the majority of Italian academies, the greatest degree to demonstrate their abilities is C-Silver or C-Gold (fourth and fifth domestic leagues).
According to the many reasons described above, it has become more difficult to find an high-medium level team that provides a player right from his youth sector the opportunity to consistently play in the Italian First or Second Division. During this season, Varese was an outstanding anomaly in giving both Niccolò Virginio (2003) and Matteo Librizzi (2002) important minutes in First Division games.
However, nowadays in Italy the only exception to invest on a young player is the lack in resources from a team, which is more looking for low-salary athletes while willing to perform at their maximum potential. It’s not a case that the teams Matteo Spagnolo and Gabriele Procida played for, two of the Italian brightest prospects and recently selected at the NBA Draft, are now relegated.
For the vast majority of potential athletes playing basketball abroad is the only path out. One of the most recent instances is Davide Moretti, who, after four years split between Stellazzurra, Pistoia, and Treviso, chose the American road, spending three years at Texas Tech University before returning to Italy with the Olimpia Milano jersey in 2020. He now plays for Pesaro. His younger brother is on the same path, attending one of the most prominent high schools, DME Academy.
Sasha Grant transferred from Esperia Cagliari- Pallacanestro Reggiana to Bayern Munich, where he spent four seasons playing in the development system before, second team (ProB- Division) and his Bundesliga/Euroleague debut after. The 2002-born player was an integral part of Scaligera Verona’s A1 promotion-clinching season.
Another case in point is Stellazzurra product Abramo Canka, who signed a multi-year deal with Lokomotiv Kuban in Superleague 1 where he averaged 10.9 points, 1.9 assists, and 3.7 rebounds per game.
OUTRO
There are many rising new talents on the Italian scene who are eager to shine: Emanuel Innocenti (2004) and Matteo Visintin, recently named MVP of the ANGT Qualifier in Patras, have both been playing important minutes in the 2nd division League games for a few years with Stellazzurra, Mattia De Martin (2005) and Leonardo Marangon (2005) who were selected at the NBA BWB in Milan, Elhadhji Dame Sarr (2006), who is attracting interest from American high schools and teams all over Europe, and the 2007-born players Giovanni Granai and Maikcol Perez who attended the Jr.NBA Camp in Rome in May and were chosen as two of the event’s top ten players for the 2022 Abu Dhabi Jr.NBA Elite Camp Europe and Middle East.
Everyone of them have the talent to make a significant influence at the highest level: will the Italian system enable them to do so? Are they allowing those young players to fail? Could they find the right dimension in Italy? Or will they be compelled to play overseas? Thursday night was unquestionably a game-changer for Italian basketball, and no one can pretend otherwise. The benefit of developing and exposing young players is immeasurable, and there is considerable optimism for the future of this industry in Italy. Everything is in our hands. Keep dreaming or living the dream.
