It’s common to say that Italy it’s not a country for young guys, but lately something is changing. Due to the crisis, people have to find new ways to reach their objectives and this is happening also in the basketball movement: with very low budget, the president of Lega A’s team have to rely on young talents. The first team in my mind is Virtus Bologna of President Claudio Sabatini: they lost top European players like Koponen and Sanikidze and thus they decided to bet on a “green line” with players like Moraschini, Imbrò and Gaddefors. The Italian talent Matteo Imbrò is the one that impressed me much, because he’s a 1994 guy and he’s playing this season with a lot of maturity and above all he has a lot of confidence from his coach, so much that he’s the first backup from the bench and now he has a 20 minutes average on the court with 2.6 points per game. Also Gaddefors and Moraschini are having a good impact with the Swedish one that has 5 points per game with 13 minutes average on the court while Moraschini has 10 minutes with 4 points per game.

Despite the bad beginning of the season, Angelico Biella is giving a lot of space to young guys: Laganà (1993) is growing very fast and he has 16 minutes with 4,7 points on the parquet. Chrysikopoulos, after the last season hard injury, is recovering to reach the best form possible and now he has 14 minutes on the court with 3 points per game.

Melli and Gentile are the future of the Italian national team and, despite EA7 Milano has already lost 3 games in the competition, they are playing a good season. Melli (1991) has 14 minutes with 5 points per game and Gentile has 17 minutes with 3 points per game.

Silins of Reggio Emilia is one the most interesting young player in Italy: he’s smart and he has an amazing 3 points shot. This is his first year in Lega A and he has 10 minutes with 1 point of average but I’m sure that his going to improve game after game.

So these are good news for the Italian basketball: in times of trouble the best choice is to bet on young prospect with the hope that they will mature and become the new top player.

Photo: FIBA Europe / Ciamillo-Castoria / Matteo Marchi