Italians lose top playmaker
Nico Mannion won;t be able to see action for Italy in the coming FIBA World Cup. (Photo by David Dow / NBAE / Getty Images / Getty Images via AFP)
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Nico Mannion won;t be able to see action for Italy in the coming FIBA World Cup. (Photo by David Dow / NBAE / Getty Images / Getty Images via AFP)
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Gilas Pilipinas will have one less thing to worry about when it competes in the preliminaries of the FIBA Basketball World Cup.
The Italian Basketball Federation confirmed that its top point guard, Nico Mannion, will not be seeing action in the prestigious 32-nation event set from 25 August to 10 September in Manila.
The federation said the 22-year-old playmaker has decided to take a rest following a grueling campaign with Saski Baskonia in the Euro League.
"This summer, Nico Mannion will not be part of the team," Italian head coach Gianmarco Pozzecco said in a statement.
"It was a tough decision, but mutual. Over the last two years, Nico has been the key player for the national team, displaying a strong bond to the Azzurri and professionalism. However, this tested his physical condition. We agreed that it would be better to not include him in the roster for the World Cup."
Regarded as one of the best Italian basketball players in the United States, Mannion was considered as one of the top players in the 2019 high school recruiting class.
He was a consensus five-star recruit who received offers from elite Division I schools like Duke and Villanova before committing to Arizona.
After a strong season with the Wildcats, Mannion was selected with the 48th pick by the Golden State Warriors in the 2020 National Basketball Association Rookie Draft.
But things didn't pan out as expected so he returned to Europe and campaigned for Virtus Bologna in the Lega Basket Serie A with the hopes of advancing to the Euro Cup and the Euro League.
With Mannion out, Italy will be banking on former NBA player Nicolo Melli, Luigi Datome, Mouhamet Diouf, Riccardo Visconti, Luca Severini, and Gabriele Procida.
Utah Jazz forward Simone Fontecchio, the teammate of Gilas naturalized player Jordan Clarkson, will also join but was not part of the team that opened its training camp in Folgaria last Monday.
The Azzurri will be facing China, Turkey and Cape Verde in the Trentino Cup at the BLM Group Arena in Trento, Italy from 4 to 5 August before competing in the Aegean Acropolis Tournament in Greece.
Then, they will move their training camp to Athens before flying to Asia for the final stretch of their buildup.
The Italians are bunched in Group A together with Gilas Pilipinas, Dominican Republic and Angola.
