NBA is heading to the All Star Game. Now it has even a dedicated TV channel: if it had been there when I was a boy I would have watched it from morning to night, now I will use very little. I have seen live two matches between NBA teams: Phoenix Suns-New Jersey Nets in Milan in the 80s and Brooklyn Nets-Toronto Raptors in New York in 2015. This time I do not mean to talk about these, but about a tournament between an NBA team and three European ones, in 1989.
The tournament was co-organized by NBA and FIBA and sponsored by McDonald's. It was a quadrangle between Denver Nuggets, Jugoplastika Split and two other teams, which I verified were Barcelona and Olimpia Milan (I admit, this time I broke the rule I gave myself when I started writing, to base stories on my memory without checking) . It took place in Rome, the city I was visiting for the first time, not imagining in the least that eight years later I would live there. On that occasion I also saw the Pope, for my first and only time.
Arrived at Palaeur (today Palalottomatica) I immediately noticed the difference with the San Siro Palasport, which I remembered well: even though it was bigger, you could see much better, since there was no cycling track. My place was, it seems to me, in the second of three decks, near a basket. A few lines before I saw Julius Erving, the legendary Doctor J, in evening suit, as a guest of honor (he had retired two years before).
The Denver Nuggets entered the field: we saw some good plays, but it was a bit disappointing, because the starters (the stars were English and Davis) stayed little on the field and for the most part time we saw players we had never heard of, who anyway worked hard, fighting for a place in the team. But then it started the second game, that of Jugoplastika, and there I was enchanted, especially by Radja and Kukoc, but also by the rest of the team. The audience also incited them more than the Americans. Then for us they were all Yugoslav players, later we had to learn painfully, that Radja and Kukoc were Croats, the center Savic Bosnian (and ethnically Serbian), other Serbian.
Two days later there was the final: it was supposed to be a game without history, then it was unthinkable that a European team, een without Americans, could beat an NBA team. A few years earlier I had seen a mixed team of mid-level NBA players (apart from the star Moses Malone) giving 19 points to Olimpia Milano, then sponsored by Billy. Instead Jugoplastika challenghed until 2-3 minutes to the end, sometimes even went ahead. There was the deafening cry "Ju-go-pla-sti-ka, Ju-go-pla-sti-ka". I never thought I would hear an Italian audience heat up so much for a foreign team: something similar would be seen the following year at the soccer World Cup, for Cameroon. The Dalmatians also paid a shorter bench than the Nuggets: on 40 minutes, instead of 48, being able to keep Radja and Kukoc always on the field, maybe they would have won.
That fantastic team dominated in Europe again for a couple of years. And then, as Italian singer Edoardo Bennato sang, the war came, that takes away all dreams….
The tournament was co-organized by NBA and FIBA and sponsored by McDonald's. It was a quadrangle between Denver Nuggets, Jugoplastika Split and two other teams, which I verified were Barcelona and Olimpia Milan (I admit, this time I broke the rule I gave myself when I started writing, to base stories on my memory without checking) . It took place in Rome, the city I was visiting for the first time, not imagining in the least that eight years later I would live there. On that occasion I also saw the Pope, for my first and only time.
Arrived at Palaeur (today Palalottomatica) I immediately noticed the difference with the San Siro Palasport, which I remembered well: even though it was bigger, you could see much better, since there was no cycling track. My place was, it seems to me, in the second of three decks, near a basket. A few lines before I saw Julius Erving, the legendary Doctor J, in evening suit, as a guest of honor (he had retired two years before).
The Denver Nuggets entered the field: we saw some good plays, but it was a bit disappointing, because the starters (the stars were English and Davis) stayed little on the field and for the most part time we saw players we had never heard of, who anyway worked hard, fighting for a place in the team. But then it started the second game, that of Jugoplastika, and there I was enchanted, especially by Radja and Kukoc, but also by the rest of the team. The audience also incited them more than the Americans. Then for us they were all Yugoslav players, later we had to learn painfully, that Radja and Kukoc were Croats, the center Savic Bosnian (and ethnically Serbian), other Serbian.
Two days later there was the final: it was supposed to be a game without history, then it was unthinkable that a European team, een without Americans, could beat an NBA team. A few years earlier I had seen a mixed team of mid-level NBA players (apart from the star Moses Malone) giving 19 points to Olimpia Milano, then sponsored by Billy. Instead Jugoplastika challenghed until 2-3 minutes to the end, sometimes even went ahead. There was the deafening cry "Ju-go-pla-sti-ka, Ju-go-pla-sti-ka". I never thought I would hear an Italian audience heat up so much for a foreign team: something similar would be seen the following year at the soccer World Cup, for Cameroon. The Dalmatians also paid a shorter bench than the Nuggets: on 40 minutes, instead of 48, being able to keep Radja and Kukoc always on the field, maybe they would have won.
That fantastic team dominated in Europe again for a couple of years. And then, as Italian singer Edoardo Bennato sang, the war came, that takes away all dreams….
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