ITA - Datome: "FIBA Basketball World Cup is my dream"

ROMA (EuroBasket/FIBA Basketball World Cup) - Luigi Datome will never forget his 2013 year. First, he won the Italian League MVP award, leading Acea Roma to an unexpected playoffs final series against Siena, then he signed a two-year NBA deal with the Detroit Pistons worth 3.5 million dollars.

As a result, the 25-year old forward will become the fourth Italian player in the NBA, joining Andrea Bargnani (New York Knicks), guard Marco Belinelli (San Antonio Spurs) and injured forward Danilo Gallinari (Denver Nuggets), whose knee surgery will prevent him from playing at the EuroBasket in Slovenia (4-22 September), a tournament from which the first six teams (excluding host country Spain) will qualify for the 2014 FIBA World Cup.

Having returned from Detroit, where he signed his contract and was officially introduced as a Pistons players, Datome is eager to start the summer campaign with the national team following last year's perfect run (8-0) in the EuroBasket Qualification Round.

"My NBA future is a dream, but it's not the only one. I want to reach big goals with Italy too because an important result with the national team is the only way to increase the popularity of basketball in our country," Datome told FIBA.com.

During his farewell press conference in Rome, Datome was asked if he preferred an NBA Rookie of the Year award over an European medal with Italy.

"I would definitely pick a medal. Our basketball needs an European medal more than an individual award. And such a big achievement would send Italy to the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, a further dream for me."

However, Datome knows the road will be tough, as the Azzurri squad will open their EuroBasket campaign in Group D against Greece, Russia, Turkey, Sweden and Finland. Moreover, Italy needs to break a bad run as they have failed to get out of the competition first round since 2003 when they finished third.

"We need to be ready starting from day one and if we overcome the first round, we will earn a lot of confidence," Datome said.

"I think our team can be competitive, but after some changes in our squad in comparison with last year, we need to find out ourselves," he went on, referring to Gallinari's absence, Bargnani and Belinelli's comebacks and two other important additions including Italian-American point guard Travis Diener and rising star Alessandro Gentile.

“We need to play with the same spirit we had last summer, when we created an unselfish team. We have some promising skills, but chemistry will be the key."

Italy coach Simone Pianigiani named 19 players in his preliminary squad which will start its training camp next Wednesday.
Guards: Pietro Aradori, Marco Belinelli, Daniele Cavaliero, Andrea Cinciarini, Travis Diener, Daniel Hackett, Giuseppe Poeta, Luca Vitali, and Riccardo Moraschini who is aggregated for the first week.
Forwards: Luigi Datome, Alessandro Gentile, Stefano Mancinelli, Achille Polonara, Guido Rosselli.
Centres: Andrea Bargnani, Marco Cusin, Angelo Gigli, Nicolò Melli, and Daniele Magro who is aggregated for the first week.

FIBA