Azzurri’s Pajola, Ricci, and Tonut express their desire to celebrate Gigi Datome

By Cesare Milanti / info@eurohoops.net

MANILA, Philippines – Even the best ones have to retire, someday. And that moment has come for Gigi Datome, who will officially leave professional basketball – as an active player – after the end of the 2023 FIBA World Cup in Manila, as previously announced by the 35-year-old himself.

Ending such a long and eventful career, started back in 2003 with Siena and the Italian national team, with a 37-point defeat would have been unfair to one of the most inspiring figures of European basketball of recent memory. Luckily enough, there will be two more games in the Philippines.

After playing the 200th game with the Italian national team in the decisive clash against Puerto Rico to advance to the Quarter-Finals of the World Cup, where Italy hadn’t qualified in 25 years, the former Fenerbahce player will retire on September 9th, against one between Lithuania and Slovenia.

Before facing Latvia in the first of two classification games to make Italy’s final position official between the 8th and the 5th spot, some of Gigi Datome’s teammates spoke to Eurohoops and the Italian media to express their desire to properly celebrate the legend and recently former Olimpia Milan player.

“It will surely be awesome to honor a captain, but most importantly an amazing person like Gigi. Our goal is to celebrate him in the best possible way”, Alessandro Pajola started. “He gave us the example of sacrificing ourselves and giving the maximum for this jersey. We learned what to do from him. We will have to play like it was still a do-or-die game, after what he taught us”, the 23-year-old guard added.

While Alessandro Pajola has been a national team teammate and his rival in the past few years with Virtus Bologna, Stefano Tonut lived his everyday life next to the former Detroit Pistons and Boston Celtics player since he joined Olimpia Milan, in the summer of 2022.

“I thought about it this morning”, he first said. “It’s difficult to find motivation in playing two games which are relatively important, after such a heavy loss. One of our stimuli comes from the fact that it is as high as possible in the FIBA ranking. But our thoughts are mainly to celebrate Luigi properly”, the former Reyer Venice guard commented.

Being an effective asset in this 2023 FIBA World Cup, crucial in Italy’s comeback against Serbia to stay alive during the Group Phase, Gigi Datome was praised once more by Tonut. “Seeing him play his last two games with the national team, having the opportunity to celebrate this retirement as a teammate, the luck of being present, I just want him to have the best-ever goodbye to basketball”, he added.

Finally, Giampaolo Ricci took the microphone, being the closest one among the three with Gigi Datome, having played with him for two years now both representing the Italian national team and Olimpia Milan. “The best thing I learned from him is its mental strength, his readiness”, he first said.

“He’s able to be ready in whatever occasion: if he has to play twenty minutes, the last quarter, being three months out, and then come back. His ability to approach and manage every moment of his career at the highest level is the gift I’ll always take with me”, Giampaolo Ricci added.

Finally, the 31-year-old power forward recalled a moment with one of his inspirational figures. “The first time I saw him live on the same court was the training camp in 2019. When I was passing him the ball, I was thinking “How is it even possible we are playing the same sport? How do we have the same hands?”, he said. “Taking his talent and his culture aside, which everybody knows, the thing that impressed me the most was approaching every moment on and off the court. A rare mental strength”, Giampaolo Ricci concluded.

PHOTO CREDIT: 2023 FIBA World Cup

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