By Niki Bakouli/ bakouli@eurohoops.net
When you are young, everything seems perfect. You think you can own the world, especially when you have the luck to find your call from early ages. Your talent. Your… thing. As time goes by, you get to learn that nothing is enough, when you don’t appreciating your “gift”, when you don’t do what you have to do to honor it. At the end of the day, to get what you want out of this life, you need to work you ass off, to evolve.
To prove (with proper actions) that you really want to get where you are supposed to be. And that’s when… life comes reminds you the reality, when you find yourself in a position, where you need to prove yourself. As in everything else, you have two choices: to live up to your expectations or to rest on your laurels and to call it a day.
Luigi Datome (“Gigi” for his friends and.. for his followers on Twitter) reacted in a way which brought him this season to the NBA’s spotlight, with three teams sending their representatives to check him out. As a teenager, he had scouts excited about him, but later on they believed he didn’t have the progress he supposed to have. This season, as Acea Roma’s captain it seems he has found his way back on track… to fulfill his destiny.
“You have got to have the right mix of everything. Hard work, experience, chances etc. I can say I am at my prime and there were too many things that helped me to become a better player”, he says to Εurohoops.net, acknowledging that when he was younger and tried to get picked out of the NBA draft “I wasn’t ready, so I didn’t get picked. But that’s all right”.
Maybe because he has the chance to be an NBAer in the near future, after we have read about three teams following him, with the Boston Celtics being one of them? “I know only… what you know and that is everything Ι read on newspapers and on the websites. I haven’t talk with anybody directly. OK, I’ve notice some scouts in the gym, to watch my games, but I guess this is something they do with many, many players. There is no doubt that it’s an honor for me. But I don’t know something more about it and to be honest, I don’t want to have illusions, in case nothing will happen”, since nobody likes to be disappointed when it comes to his dreams. “I have a contract for one more year with Roma, with an NBA-out and as every year, I am waiting for the summer to check the market and decide what I will do. Of course I still have the dream to become an NBAer, but even if it’ll not come true, I’ m really happy with what I have done for myself in Italy. I think I have a pretty good career”, to say the least!
Right now, Acea Roma is on the third spot at Serie A’s standings “and we fight every weekend for the best outcome”. Which can send the team back to Euroleague? “This is tough, since we need to reach the Finals for that to happen, after Siena and Milan have the contracts”. Teams which Roma has already beat. “This is one thing and a totally different to reach the Finals and be able to get the championship. For that, you need consistency, you need to have the experience of playing a game every two days and be able to get a best- of- seven series. You need to have the same intensity, day in day out and we don’t have that, yet”.
What they do have? “Nicola Alberani (Roma’s GM) did a great job, on scouting young players who are playing for the first time in Italy, moreover in Europe. He brought really talented players and together with that, the hall organization changed for the best. We are a low budget team, but everything works in the right way and I mean all the departments (from marketing to the team). Our club has a new face and of course winning helps a lot”.