12.07.2006	posted by Jeff Taylor 2:00 pm
Category: FIBA World Championship

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BARGNANI CAUGHT BETWEEN ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

Two words - Andrea Bargnani.

Roman, Benetton Treviso star and now, number one pick in the NBA draft by the Toronto Raptors.

Seven-footer Bargnani is also, with his signature still not dry on a contract which has secured his financial future for life, an uncertainty for Italy at the FIBA World Championship.

A European basketball treasure from Rome who played at Benetton the past few seasons, the 20-year-old Bargnani already finds himself in between a rock and a hard place.

Does he stay in America, spend time in the weight room where he needs to add some muscle to his thin frame and prepare for a difficult rookie campaign in the NBA with the Raptors, or does he link up with the Italians, one of the best stories in international basketball the past few seasons, and play at the World Championship in Japan?

My advice to Andrea?

Talk to Carlo Recalcati, the Italy coach, talk to David Blatt, your coach last season at Benetton, and talk to Toronto's assistant general manager Maurizio Gherardini, the man who brought you to Benetton and helped you develop into the one of the most promising players ever to leave Europe for North America.

They will help you.

I want to see Andrea play in Japan, and so does everyone else. I am a huge fan of the Italian team and coach Carlo Recalcati, and I want the FIBA World Championship to be a huge success.

But playing in Japan may not be what's best for Andrea.

Recalcati is already conceding Bargnani may not play. And, with the class and cool head that he he shown ever since taking over Italy and leading them to a bronze medal at EuroBasket 2003, and a silver medal at the Athens Olympics, Recalcati is putting no pressure on the youngster.

"Either he decides to come, or not," said Recalcati, a former national team player himself.

"Whatever his decision, it will not change my view on him. Andrea represents the future of Italy for the next 10 years and we have to remember this."

This could erupt into a club-versus-country conflict if Recalcati or the Italian federation want it to, but they don't.

Sadly, Serbia & Montenegro have had a big of club-versus-country conflict this summer regarding Nenad Krstic and Aleksandar Pavlovic. No matter how deep the disappointment of having the NBA players decide against playing in Japan, that federation should ease up and go into battle with the best players at its disposal.

Belgrade is a hotbed of hoops and there are plenty of players for that national side to take to the Far East.

The problem is that Serbo-Montenegrin coach Dragan Sakota desperately wanted Krstic, the starting center with the Nets the past couple of seasons, to be the centerpiece of the young team he is building for the future.

Krstic was feeling the pressure.

He even bumped into Serbian president Boris Tadic in a restaurant, and the head of state told the youngster how wonderful it would be to see him play for the Blues.

I truly am a great admirer of most things Serbo-Montenegrin when it comes to basketball. They were incredible hosts at EuroBasket 2005, they have produced terrific international players like Dejan Bodiroga and some of the legends in the game like Vlade Divac, Predrag Danilovic and Aleksandar Djordjevic. These players are taught the game the right way.

I'm big fans of coaches Zeljko Obradovic at Panathinaikos and Dusan Ivkovic at Dynamo Moscow. They are legends.

But I'm not a fan of the heavy-handed approach the Serbo-Montenegrin federation took with unnamed players who decided not to play in Japan.

The federation issued a statement, part of which said: "What has happened in the heads of some of the young players that they cannot perceive the importance of playing for the national team while they are watching the mega-stars at the FIFA World Cup? How they fight, play, mourn or celebrate while they are in a national team jersey, how it is obvious that it is more important to them than any money they've earned or will earn."

This does nothing for the game in Serbia & Montenegro. All it does is burn bridges with great players.