The derby with Olimpia Milan on Sunday he arrives on time to redeem the debacle totale last week in Cremona. As always when we talk about Milan we need to understand which twelve coach Messina will choose in the rotations between the championship and the Euroleague from a roster that is vast rather than extensive.
In fact, they already are 17 the seniors sent to the scoresheet by the Milanese club, which is why we are going to take a look at the Olimpia roster in its entirety.
Control room completely revolutionized compared to last year with solo Diego Flaccadoriborn in ’96, remained…on the payroll. In the Euroleague, with the Bayern shirt, the decision was made to evolve from an undersized guard into a playmaker to have space at this level: a successful choice to date even if he has less space in the league than last season: 12′ compared to over 17′ in 2022 /23. With him is the very fresh ex Nico Mannion: 4 games in the Olimpia shirt with 6.5 points in 22′, only 25% from 2 and 40% from 3 with 3.5 assists per evening which makes him the second best passer in Milan. Direction that also includes Nenad Dimitrijevic and Leandro Bolmaro. The latter returns to the Euroleague this week against Barcelona and is likely not to be included in the rotation for the derby while the Slav is certainly a prospective player. He had some initial amnesia in the Euroleague, but he is an intelligent player with good hands as evidenced by the 5 assists on average in the championship.
On guard we find the blue one Tonut, Bortolani and Fabien Caseur and Brooks. Tonut is a player of absolute reliability in terms of performance, very good at attacking the basket, a little less so at shooting where he has always been a rather inconsistent shooter. Bortolani he was also linked to Varese during the Mannion controversy, but in the end he remained at Olimpia where so far the spaces for him have not been huge with only 7 appearances and only 7 minutes on average in the league. The French expert Caser he has little chance of playing in Masnago: so far he has only been used twice in the championship by coach Messina.
At small forward there is the absolute talent of Shavon Shieldsthe player who influenced the fortunes of the Milanese team in his fifth year in the Milanese shirt, remained despite a change of agency that had led to thoughts of his possible exit from the red shoes, and Giampaolo Riccian athlete and fighter who covers both the roles of small forward and power forward well and has an excellent role as a specialist in heavy shooting where he shoots with 39% in Serie A.
Finally, under the basket we find a very long battery of strong forwards and centers with Mirotic to act as a star even if the return of Zach LeDay it is absolutely not to be underestimated. On the contrary. The 3 years at Partizan under the orders of a guru like Obradovic have certainly enriched the game of the 30-year-old Azerbaijani (did you remember him from Texan? In the meantime he also acquired an Azerbaijan passport) who has returned as one of the leaders of this Olympia. The center sector where the former was exterminated Caruso he sees little of the pitch this season too (only 8 appearances and 11 minutes on average) despite the injuries that have and are decimating the sector with Or still out of the picture. The former Sassari native Diop he has recovered from the injury and produces 3.2 points and 2.7 rebounds in 10 minutes of average usage while Gillespie he arrived due to the injuries mentioned above. Brought to Europe by Trinchieri’s Bayern, he then moved to Red Star while this year he played in New Zealand with the New Zealand Breakers.
Watch out for…Armoni Brooks
It’s her first time on this side of the ocean, but Armoni Brooks is already showing remarkable numbers. In the summer he signed a two-year contract with the Milanese club with a view to rejuvenating the Milanese roster. Ideally he takes Billy Baron’s place as he is a player with an excellent long shot with fluid and fast mechanics. On a defensive level, he is a player who has yet to fully form himself as he is more suited to a natural guard role rather than playmaking assistant. The numbers in the championship confirm all this with a stratospheric result 48.9% from 3-point range and just a normal 0.9 assists per game. Ice-cold on the line, Brooks has excellent leg strength: despite being only 191 cm tall, he averages 5.1 per rebound in Serie A. 8 times on the scoresheet in this championship: there are decent chances of seeing him at the Itelyum Arena. His past also includes the NBA with the jerseys of Houston, Toronto and Brooklyn with which he played 10 games last year.
Matteo Gallo