The black sheep of American basketball has won the NBA. THE Toronto Raptors, the only Canadian franchise among the 30 in the most important basketball league in the world, defeated the favorites and defending champions of the Golden State Warriors, putting an end to more than two decades of teasing. Since 1995, the year of their debut in the NBA together with the other Canadian franchise of the Vancouver Grizzlies (later disappeared), the Ontario dinosaurs had never won the title, let alone played in a final, or even done much in the playoffs, although among their ranks have included – over the years – champions of the caliber of Vince Carter, Tracy Mc Grady, Demar Derozan and most recently Kawhi Leonard, which instead the title in Canada managed to bring him from Mvp of the Finals, repeating the double (title and best player) of 2014 with the San Antonio Spurs.
Not only had they never won, but the Toronto Raptors, as stated in the same celebratory video posted by the franchise on social networks immediately after the 114-110 victory in Oakland, "they have often been underestimated and overlooked“. Today, however, the basketball team "born in the land of hockey and which built the building where the baseball stadium used to be", is the queen of the NBA. He lined up the 29 opponents, all Americans and many of which are more famous and considered. In the playoffs alone, the Raptors took out the Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks, both matches with excellent cards to play for the title, and in the final the Warriors, who, even if crippled by injuries, are always the team that has won 3 of the last four championships, always reaching the last act.
The triumph of Toronto, helmed by Leonard but with the contribution of less acclaimed champions such as Lowy, Ibaka, Marc Gasol, if not of semi-unknowns like Vanvleet e Siakam (the latter candidate for the title of most improved player of the season), also has a strong flavor of Italy. For many reasons. The first has little to do with basketball but concerns our fellow citizens who emigrated to Canada: in Ontario, the province of Toronto, Italian Canadians are now almost one million, and in Toronto – a multi-ethnic city par excellence, where dozens of languages are spoken – Italian is the third most spoken language, the first after the official English and French. According to some estimates, Toronto is the city in the world, excluding those in Italian territory, where the most people of Italian blood reside.
But also with regard to basketball, there is no shortage of ties with Italy. The Raptors were the franchise that welcomed the first Italian in the NBA, Vincenzo Esposito, believing in it right away, from their first season, in 1995. The Casertan left after only one year, leaving no traces of his passage, but a few years later he would be replaced by another blue who instead made a more significant contribution to the slow, gradual and in everyone's eyes imperceptible growth of the Canadian franchise. It was about Andrea Bargnani, the first and still the only Italian to have been chosen with the overall number one in the draft. An honor, let us remember, reserved for a few, and among these few there is not even Michael Jordan.
Bargnani has in turn left Canada and the NBA for some time, with a balance sheet in chiaroscuro. Even today, however, Toronto breathes blue air: among the collaborators of coach Nick Nurse there is our Sergio Scariolo, one of the invisible creators of a success for many unexpected but fully deserved. No one had taken seriously "those from the North", as they like to call themselves, but in the end they won. “The North has spoken“: this is the motto chosen to celebrate.
