By Cesare Milanti / info@eurohoops.net
In 2015, Gigi Datome was eager to find himself more playing time in the NBA. He had crossed the Atlantic two years before to sign with the Detroit Pistons, but in late February 2015 – just before the trade deadline – he moved to the Boston Celtics. In Boston, Brad Stevens praised him as the team’s “best shooter” and it looked like he had found his rhythm with the Celtics.
His career in Europe hadn’t seen him to go further than Italian border, planting his roots from Sardinia all the way to the “Continent”, as people from the island call the Peninsula. From then on, he gained experience between Siena and Scafati before bursting onto the scene in Rome.
He had never thought about playing in Turkiye, nor he had ever been in the country that lies in both Asia and Europe. While immersed in his endless thoughts about how to catch more attention in Boston, he thought about organizing a much-needed vacation there.
Four of his best friends and a marvelous city like Istanbul made for what should have been an unforgettable adventure, but something didn’t go according to plan and the trip got canceled. However, fate had a way of intervening later in the most intricate and inexplicable ways. “You really wanted to go,” they told him.
Organized chaos in Istanbul, small angles in Milan
A few months after announcing his retirement, while speaking to the Italian magazine Vanity Fair, Datome chose the right words – as he usually does – to sum up in a few lines his first encounter with Istanbul: “The first time I crossed the Bosphorus by boat, at sunset: I had an epiphany watching the silhouette of the city, with minarets and the singing of the muezzin in the background.”
Talking to Eurohoops before the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague clash between the two most recent and beloved organizations he played for, with Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul hosting EA7 Emporio Armani Milan in Round 12 on Friday night, the 37-year-old former small forward recalled that early memory that led to him spending five years in Turkiye.
“I was amazed by the beauty of the city. I was very fascinated and remained speechless. Sounds of seagulls and muezzin, Istanbul’s colors,” he recalls. “That logically made it enter my heart and gave me the desire to discover it slowly. It’s such a variegated city that every year I had something new to explore. Its wonderfulness gave me the idea of organized chaos, a hectic city with a beating heart.”
Despite being one of the most recognizable faces for one of Istanbul’s sporting powerhouses, Datome was as small as a nail when confronted by a port that had embraced thousands of traditions, cultures, people, voices, and colors over the centuries. As Turkish music made him sway.
He recalled being mesmerized by Istanbul’s fascinating contradictions of West and East, the tale of two Continents with Europe and Asia. The layman and the devotee, crossing a table bar with two friends chatting, one observing the Muslim religion and wearing a veil, the other with heels. In a few words, the charming feeling of making everybody feel at home, finding a place that could suit the whole world.
Datome definitely had his own spaces in Milan, too, which he describes as big as a “neighborhood of Istanbul”. While projected into the future with a metropolitan eye, the Italian city still contains its small angles. Gigi has one too.
“There are some corners of Milan where you can find more human-accessible spaces. Mine’s a bookstore in the area of Giambellino, named Gogol,” he says. Perfectly understandable, as it’s no news that the current activity coordinator for the Italian men’s national team’s loves to fill his down time by reading.
Moreover, according to him, you may attach Milan to a specific time of your life, whether it’s for studying or working reasons, and then you keep it in your drawer of memories. It has happened to him too after frenetic but memorable – cultural-wise too, being full of events everywhere – years, as he said goodbye to it last summer. Another one, following his farewell to Istanbul in 2020.
“When I left [Fenerbahce], I didn’t know anything about Milan. I had the feeling that it might have been the last time I was in Istanbul. The last night before I left, I took a long and lonely walk. I kept saying to myself that I’d hate to leave. But those were incredible years, some I will never forget,” he remembers.
Short-roll masters and different on-ball leaders
Datome’s career is about fond memories, a lot of trophies won both in Istanbul – the 2017 EuroLeague title, three Turkish championships, three Turkish Cups and two Turkish Super Cups – and Milan, where he lifted two Italian championships, two Italian Cups and one Italian Super Cup. And spot-up clutch shots.
When you have teammates able to maximize their abilities in short-roll situations, it gets easier. Teammates like Jan Vesely or Kyle Hines, legends of the EuroLeague. “Do you know what’s impressive?” Datome ponders. “That I always hoped that opposing teams would have gone for an edge defense. With them going for the short-roll, it was an automatic 4-on-3 situation.
“There always was an advantage, with shooters ready. Also, if he had even minimum space to go to the basket, Jan [Vesely] explode. Despite being close to the end of his career, Kyle [Hines] would have done the same: the reaction time between receiving the ball and making the right pass was beautiful. Prepared and studied, but truly beautiful.”
Zeljko Obradovic used to remind them about it when things started to get tricky with the hedge defense. “He kept on saying that if the other coach had asked him before the game ,’What defense would you want us to do?’, he would have asked exactly what they were doing. And we had to punish them,” he adds.
Adding Kostas Sloukas, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Marko Guduric, and more able to perform the pocket pass perfectly – even when pressured at the highest intensity – mmade things even easier. In the equation, of course, we must mention how efficient that shot by Datome was. His clutchness became a crucial factor for the opposing teams’ scouting department: how on earth can they react to that basketball symphony?
“My responsibility in that specific situation was clear: if I got the ball and I had the necessary space to shoot, I had to shoot,” he says. “And possibly I had to score as much as possible. Confidence, in that aspect, comes from work: during the week I shot thousands of times because I knew I had to be reliable
“When the ball came to me, it was because the perfect situation had been created. To make my teammates get me the ball, I had to prove I was the one making the basket. If that happened, opponents put more pressure on me, creating space and advantage for others. I always went home happy when I shot less because that meant there was an advantage somewhere else. And we won.”
Despite happening a little less at Milan than it did at Fenerbahce due to age, the same applied to offensive rotations in Ettore Messina’s system. Especially during Chacho Rodriguez’s playmaking era in the Italian city. When the red-and-white No. 13 was bringing the ball up, something special was coming.
“Chacho [Rodriguez] was nothing but spontaneous, everything going with the flow. He seemed natural in all of his movements”, he says about the now-retired Spanish legend. A different kind of floor general than Kostas Sloukas. “[Kostas] Sloukas was maniacal in individual work. In the five years we were together, I think he ate rice and chicken in all the lunches of those five years,” Datome jokes.
“Even looking at him today, I see that Kostas [Sloukas] has some patterns: in ball handling, step-back shots, moving off the screen. He’s very efficient, a computer. He’s more schematic, while Chacho [Rodriguez] is more poetry in motion. He tended more to play spectacular, while Kostas [Sloukas] is maybe more cynical.”
To explain their difference, you might want to watch their highlight reels or mixtapes of their best plays in the EuroLeague. “Chacho [Rodriguez]’s are varied, Kostas [Sloukas] is more constant in the way he’s decisive,” he adds. “We are still talking about two of the best, two natural leaders, two legends of this game. Two of the greatest of this generation: seven EuroLeague titles combined.”
More than a teammate: Nicolò Melli
Datome isn’t the only Italian bearded man able to make both Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul and EA7 Emporio Armani Milan fans feel strong emotions. Nicolò Melli started from Italy and chose the yellow-and-blue powerhouse to make the next step in Europe following a chapter in Bamberg; having returned to Milan after a stint in the NBA, he rejoined Fenerbahce this past summer as he goes in search of a first EuroLeague title.
Their relationship goes way beyond the wooden court as they have shared locker room experiences, titles in both organizations, travelled everywhere, and even co-hosted a podcast recorded in the past two summers with the Italian national team. Gigi Datome and Nicolò Melli are, for all intents and purposes, brothers.
“We have always put the team’s goal as the most important thing, before everything and everyone, putting egos aside,” Datome says of Melli. “We always had seriousness, commitment, and dedication. I always make fun of him, because he makes the weariest statistics in the world, but the most useful ones.”
The 33-year-old is now playing alongside Nigel Hayes-Davis, who reminds everybody a little of Gigi Datome in how he expresses himself off the court. “I like the ones who are immersed in a place’s culture, who try to understand the environment. Life experiences at this age are rarely replicated. He’s doing what I was doing at an umpteenth level. It’s nice for fans who feel represented by him too,” he says.
Both in Istanbul and Milan, Datome was also someone to learn from. Just like it happened with several other teammates: Marko Guduric, Shavon Shields, Devon Hall. And the list goes on and on. His role changed as the years passed by, gaining more and more experience. “When I arrived in Istanbul, I didn’t have such a background to set myself as a reference point for young people,” he recalls.
“I have always liked to communicate with my teammates, sharing my thoughts and listening to theirs. I’ve always tried to do that as a captain. In Fenerbahce, Milan, or the national team, the jersey is more important than anybody else. Fener was more important than [Jan] Vesely, Milan was more important than [Chacho] Rodriguez, Italy was more important than [Danilo] Gallinari.”
Two teams, one goal: winning games
Whenever Fenerbahce and Milan cross paths in the EuroLeague, it will always be a special occasion for Datome, who spent five years in Istanbul and three more in the Italian city. That’s why he will be there at Ulker Sports and Event Hall, just like in the 2023-24 season, when he was welcomed back by his people as an established club legend. “I get chills thinking about it,” he says.
“I retired with Milan, but it looks like I retired as a Fenerbahce player, too. They’ve always given me affection. Coming home will be nice again: seeing so many friends, showing my Istanbul to my wife Chiara.”
Fenerbahce and Milan for Datome obviously also brings back memories of learning from basketball legends in Zeljko Obradovic and Ettore Messina. Starting from his Fenerbahce master, with whom he played from 2015 to 2020. “He said that nobody was more important than the team. He said it and showed it with facts, consistency, and credibility. That’s something I’m trying to do with my current role,” Datome states.
“With Ettore [Messina], it is all about dedication. I already had it on my own, but seeing it from him leaves a different mark. The demands he had not only with the players but with himself as well makes you understand that to do things at a certain level, you need that. You can translate it from basketball into life, as a father, a worker, a lover, a friend. Whatever it is.
“Living daily with great basketball minds like them makes you grow off the court. Unless you only want to listen to them basketball-wise. But they give you way more than that. Those were eight intense, exhausting, mentally tiring, and endless years. But I would always relive them back again if I could.”
Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul and EA7 Emporio Armani Milan facing each other will always mean something more for Gigi Datome. It’s a matchup that speaks about Gigi Datome’s legacy, which will last forever in the history of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague.
PHOTO CREDIT: EuroLeague, GRAPHICS CREDIT: Eurohoops