By : Vedran Modric
During the 2015 Adidas Eurocamp I had the chance to talk with Eurocamp director Maurizio Gherardini who is also general manager of Turkish powerhouse Fenerbahce. This is what he said in a exclusive interview with Eurohopes.
I read that you started in the basketball business as an assistant coach in your hometown team Forli and you stayed in Forli for 17 years which is unheard of in the basketball business these days. Can you reflect on that time a little bit?
Definitely the times were different than it is today. You are talking about 40 years ago. Many things have changed and not just in basketball. But i was lucky enough that I had the opportunity to start following my passion for the game in my hometown team. I just came back from US where I was an exchange student and they were looking for somebody that could help them with the first foreign player in the history of the club. And thats how my first opportunity came up. And then it was just learning the basics how to be in the club, cover the administrative side, registration of the players and then at the same time started working in the locker room as an assistant coach. I always rate those first 8 years in Forli as probably the most important time for me to learn. You learn more what you need to do in order to get the most out of any situation. And being a small club without big resources you have to be creative and use your skills and cover every area whether it was ticketing, marketing or media. And after a few years I had the opportunity to become a general manager in the club and I was the youngest GM in the league. That was like another school in terms of putting team together and understanding the budget. Those years in Forli as a GM were very important because also not only helped me establish Forli on the basketball map in Italy but also we become a small team with good reputation and we ended up signing players that were NBA caliber players from Bob McAdoo, Kenny Gattison to Mark Landsberger. And that was in my hometown so it was special.
In 1992 you came to Benetton Treviso and you also stayed for 14 years and they became a powerhouse under you. Looking back did you expect that Benetton would be that big during those times?
When I came, I saw the potential of the place like this. La Ghirada was not as it is today, but the team had significant budget and great players and it was more a matter of how to launch them into the top level. Benetton family was very much involved in the project and we were very lucky to put together good teams and great people. Sometimes when I watch TV and I see David Blatt coaching the Cavs, Messina on the Spurs bench or D’Antoni. All these great people made Benetton. But its also very important to recruit the right players, I always take the pride into saying that we didnt invent anything but we were the first club to spend significant financial resources on scouting. When I think that in one draft the town of Treviso with 85 thousand people had 3 guys in the draft thats something thats unheard of. But that shows you how much scouting was important for us.
Coming from Croatia I remember how hard was for Drazen Petrovic because he was one of the first Europeans to play in NBA so I was wondering what was your experience because you were the first non-american interviewed for an NBA GM job in 2004 for Charlotte?
Well it was more of a opportunity to discover the different system. I mean, I was very proud and happy to go through process and i still think right now im still learning about the NBA business because it’s different than ours. Just to be considered at that level is very unique.
Your 3rd club was Toronto Raptors where you were vice president and assistant GM. What was the main difference between being GM in Europe and GM in NBA?
I think you are dealing with the system that is different than ours. You have to became a student of a new reality. One of the first things when you enter NBA office is to find a rule book on the table where you see how many different rules there are to do your job right. How to manage salary cup, how every decision affects your team. One of the strength points of NBA are that they have those rules on the table and everybody respects those rules. I had to do a lot of studying of course because its two different worlds.
Adidas Eurocamp is in its 13th year and every year you pull some under the radar player who almost steals the show. Last year it was Brazilian Christiano Felicio and this year is Arakji Wael from Lebanon. Who is responsible for picking the players?
It’s a process that starts in the summer and the names start flowing in. I like to say we are group of friends sharing feedbacks and ideas. At the beginning of the season we put together a list and then through the season we check everybody on the list. And in the end we pull out the ideal invitational list and then based on confirmations and cancelations we go to more people so we can put the best possible list. We have three major limitations : 1. Schedule-Because its not easy to find the right dates 2.Sometimes for the top prospects there is a strategy that we can not control and 3. Injuries. These things can change our ideal line-up.
Year after year there are more and more people and this year Adidas Eurocamp closed registration for access almost 2 weeks before the official opening of the camp.
It was unbelievable. We closed almost 20 days before the official opening. This event has been extremely successful and I don’t know how much we can really do in terms of controlling registration because the gym is limited.
Last question. There were some rumours about Adidas Eurocamp leaving Treviso?
No. Next year edition will be in Treviso. Thats official. See you next year.
Twitter of the author: @vedranmo
Photo: Fenerbahce.org
During the 2015 Adidas Eurocamp I had the chance to talk with Eurocamp director Maurizio Gherardini who is also general manager of Turkish powerhouse Fenerbahce. This is what he said in a exclusive interview with Eurohopes.
I read that you started in the basketball business as an assistant coach in your hometown team Forli and you stayed in Forli for 17 years which is unheard of in the basketball business these days. Can you reflect on that time a little bit?
Definitely the times were different than it is today. You are talking about 40 years ago. Many things have changed and not just in basketball. But i was lucky enough that I had the opportunity to start following my passion for the game in my hometown team. I just came back from US where I was an exchange student and they were looking for somebody that could help them with the first foreign player in the history of the club. And thats how my first opportunity came up. And then it was just learning the basics how to be in the club, cover the administrative side, registration of the players and then at the same time started working in the locker room as an assistant coach. I always rate those first 8 years in Forli as probably the most important time for me to learn. You learn more what you need to do in order to get the most out of any situation. And being a small club without big resources you have to be creative and use your skills and cover every area whether it was ticketing, marketing or media. And after a few years I had the opportunity to become a general manager in the club and I was the youngest GM in the league. That was like another school in terms of putting team together and understanding the budget. Those years in Forli as a GM were very important because also not only helped me establish Forli on the basketball map in Italy but also we become a small team with good reputation and we ended up signing players that were NBA caliber players from Bob McAdoo, Kenny Gattison to Mark Landsberger. And that was in my hometown so it was special.
In 1992 you came to Benetton Treviso and you also stayed for 14 years and they became a powerhouse under you. Looking back did you expect that Benetton would be that big during those times?
When I came, I saw the potential of the place like this. La Ghirada was not as it is today, but the team had significant budget and great players and it was more a matter of how to launch them into the top level. Benetton family was very much involved in the project and we were very lucky to put together good teams and great people. Sometimes when I watch TV and I see David Blatt coaching the Cavs, Messina on the Spurs bench or D’Antoni. All these great people made Benetton. But its also very important to recruit the right players, I always take the pride into saying that we didnt invent anything but we were the first club to spend significant financial resources on scouting. When I think that in one draft the town of Treviso with 85 thousand people had 3 guys in the draft thats something thats unheard of. But that shows you how much scouting was important for us.
Coming from Croatia I remember how hard was for Drazen Petrovic because he was one of the first Europeans to play in NBA so I was wondering what was your experience because you were the first non-american interviewed for an NBA GM job in 2004 for Charlotte?
Well it was more of a opportunity to discover the different system. I mean, I was very proud and happy to go through process and i still think right now im still learning about the NBA business because it’s different than ours. Just to be considered at that level is very unique.
Your 3rd club was Toronto Raptors where you were vice president and assistant GM. What was the main difference between being GM in Europe and GM in NBA?
I think you are dealing with the system that is different than ours. You have to became a student of a new reality. One of the first things when you enter NBA office is to find a rule book on the table where you see how many different rules there are to do your job right. How to manage salary cup, how every decision affects your team. One of the strength points of NBA are that they have those rules on the table and everybody respects those rules. I had to do a lot of studying of course because its two different worlds.
Adidas Eurocamp is in its 13th year and every year you pull some under the radar player who almost steals the show. Last year it was Brazilian Christiano Felicio and this year is Arakji Wael from Lebanon. Who is responsible for picking the players?
It’s a process that starts in the summer and the names start flowing in. I like to say we are group of friends sharing feedbacks and ideas. At the beginning of the season we put together a list and then through the season we check everybody on the list. And in the end we pull out the ideal invitational list and then based on confirmations and cancelations we go to more people so we can put the best possible list. We have three major limitations : 1. Schedule-Because its not easy to find the right dates 2.Sometimes for the top prospects there is a strategy that we can not control and 3. Injuries. These things can change our ideal line-up.
Year after year there are more and more people and this year Adidas Eurocamp closed registration for access almost 2 weeks before the official opening of the camp.
It was unbelievable. We closed almost 20 days before the official opening. This event has been extremely successful and I don’t know how much we can really do in terms of controlling registration because the gym is limited.
Last question. There were some rumours about Adidas Eurocamp leaving Treviso?
No. Next year edition will be in Treviso. Thats official. See you next year.
Twitter of the author: @vedranmo
Photo: Fenerbahce.org
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