More and more Italian fans hope that the NBA lockout last a long time. The strike by American players is in fact bringing many stars closer to the European leagues and above all to our championship. In Milan they have already begun to dream, since the return of Danilo Gallinari is official. All the details have been settled and so the talent of Sant'Angelo Lodigiano will remain in Lombardy until the end of the lockout. Gallinari has a contract with Denver until June with an option for the following season. However, the start of the NBA competitions seems really far away. Everything will remain unchanged until December, but the situation seems to be turning for the worse as the confrontation between the owners and the players' union has abruptly ended. The points that caused the break are the minimum duration of the contracts, salary cap and distribution of income. A fruitful dialogue has not been started on any of them, but the confrontation continues.
If Milan dreams, Bologna is certainly no less. Indeed, the unthinkable could happen under the Two Towers. A few days ago the news had spread of Manuel Ginobili returning to the Virtus jersey, a symbol of the incomparable successes achieved in 2001. The Argentine champion, after speaking on the phone with patron Claudio Sabatini, admitted that he wanted to evaluate the proposal. "I'm thinking about it, because Bologna has remained in my heart". As if that weren't enough, another media bomb exploded today in the capital of Emilia. Sabatini, on the sidelines of the presentation of a quadrangle scheduled in Ferrara, announced that he had started negotiations for Kobe Bryant. "We made the player an offer for home games through November 13 for $800 gross, which means about $550-600 net per game." The business is complex, but certainly not impossible. Also because the American star has already lived in Italy in four cities (Rieti, Reggio Calabria, Pistoia and Reggio Emilia) at the time when his father played in our league.
Around thirty American players have chosen the Old Continent while awaiting the NBA's recovery. Up to now the most prominent arrival has been that of Deron Williams, new point guard New Jersey Nets and now temporarily at Besiktas. In Italy, Dinamo Sassari bet on Keith Benson from the Atlanta Hawks, Benetton Treviso on E'Twaun Moore from the Boston Celtics and Montepaschi Siena on DaJuan Summers from Detroit. The Tuscans are also trying to bring Andrea Bargnani back to our area who at first had been approached in Rome, but the operation never started as the Capitoline company is implementing a financial downsizing program. Siena, on the other hand, is trying to overcome the biggest obstacle, represented by the insurance to be paid to the Toronto Raptors in the event of an injury to the Italian big man. In Tuscany, however, they believe it, also because in times of the NBA lockout, dreaming is not forbidden for anyone.
