The Two Careers of Gallinari

WITH OLIMPIA MILANO HE WON 4 ITALIAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIPS AND 1 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS CUP. BUT HE ALSO GRADUATED FROM BOCCONI AND TODAY HE IS A RESPECTED AGENT OF PROFESSIONAL PLAYERS, WHO NEED TO BE REASSURED AFTER THE LOCKDOWN

Vittorio Gallinari was the man of impossible missions. Was there a particularly feared player on the other team? He took care of it. Or, during the game, did an opponent seem unstoppable and score from any distance? Dan Peterson turned to the bench and called the Rooster, as his teammates, fans and the coach himself had nicknamed him. And he almost always did the job. He was what we could call a "luxury wingman" and if you have champions like Mike D’Antoni, Bob McAdoo and Dino Meneghin on your team, you have to be in the shadows. No less important than them, though.

A champion's talent he left to his son Danilo, who like his father played on Olimpia Milano and is now a star in the NBA. Vittorio Gallinari is now an agent representing players, a profession that allows him to reconcile his past as an athlete with his Bocconi degree and for which, at a certain point, he was about to leave basketball. "It was Dan Peterson and D’Antoni who convinced me that I shouldn't quit. And the coach made several concessions to allow me to study. "

Like everyone else, Gallinari is undergoing a particular, difficult moment in his profession, without clarity for the future. “When you think of professional sports, the reference is usually the great champions, the stars with millionaire contracts. Those who may not be affected too much from an economic point of view of the lockdown. But there are many players, especially in the minor leagues, for whom losing their salary, or part of it, has heavy consequences. These are the ones I have tried to protect the most ".

And if athletes have to solve the difficult problem of keeping fit while staying at home, technology is fundamental for an agent, but it does not solve everything: “I have to meet my players to recap the season that was ending and understand their expectations . But I also need to talk to presidents, managers and coaches. Technology helps us solve the problem of distance, but it is not the same thing, "says Gallinari," because certain situations are perceived also visually and emotionally ".

From a practical point of view, moreover, it is difficult to negotiate contracts when it is not known if the season will start regularly,  and above all if it will be played in buildings with spectators or without. “Companies, with a few exceptions, do not know what budgets they will be able to count on, and above all which sponsors. And the fans are an essential part of the show, the players get excited in front of the fans. But it is clear, as they are also doing in the NBA, that the first thing that needs to be protected is everyone's health. " At the time when Gallinari played basketball he was booming, with buildings that were seething with passion. How would a situation like this have been managed then? "There were different interests and above all there were no pay TVs which today are an important, and therefore have an impact, on this sport and on sport in general. The buildings were always full for this reason as well, because it was the only way to see your team play. Difficult to think about how the world of sport would have reacted to a pandemic ".

And in the future, will there still be space for crowded sports buildings and fans who embrace and sing next to each other? “As everyone knows, the United States is the home of basketball, so all nations tend to copy what they do. For the NBA, fans in sports halls are important but television rights are even more important, so television needs often tend to exceed sports needs. I think that even in our reality we will slowly go in this direction ".

by Davide Ripamonti
Translated by Richard Greenslade