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Basketball: the Mc Donald's Open Goes to NBA Champions
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It should have been a sort of triumphal parade for the most famous team worldwide playing at the Milan FilaForum in the context of what is certainly the most important event of basketball set up at the multipurpose centre of Assago. On the contrary, the Mc Donald's Open tournament was full of technical innovations and emotions and thus turned out to be a real success for both organizers and the public, who turned up in droves mainly to admire the NBA stars. The world champions San Antonio Spurs who, according to predictions at the eve of the Open, should have easily won over all other basketball teams.
On the contrary, and also luckily, things didn't go this way. Since 1987, when this interesting show was set up for the first time, it had never happened that a NBA team was beaten by a team from other countries. The Varese Roosters, the new Italian champions, changed history and even frightened the Texan champions in the semifinal. The men trained by coach Galli played in an extraordinary way for more than tree quarters of the match, forcing the Spurs to play the final part of the match really like world champions. The precarious physical condition of San Antonio players, who are preparing for the NBA championship, which will only start next 6th November, should not be seen as a justification for the head-to-head confrontation the Varese team was able to stage against stars like Duncan, Robinson, Elie, Jackson and Porter, who did not seem able to face a really motivated group.
When the Milan event was over, the real final turned out to be this one; in fact, the result of the final, which the Spurs played against the Brazilian team Vasco da Gama, which in turn had surprisingly won over the European champions Zalgiris Kaunas in the other semifinal, was now taken for granted. Being also reminiscent of the risk run in the match against the Roosters, this time the Spurs dominated the match, conquering the tournament by winning by nearly 40 points over their opponents.
The result of the final emphasizes even further the exploit made by the Lombard team. Last summer, there was a lot of talk about the possibility that Andrea Meneghin moved to America to play with the Toronto Raptors. What is certain is that against San Antonio the Varese Roosters really played at the level on NBA teams. The almost perfect performance shown by the Italian champions is the proof that the Italian basketball has been steadily growing in the last few years, managing to approach the strongest world teams. The European title won last July is worth a lot and the national team can now prepare for the 2000 Olympic Games of Sidney with justified optimism. The Roosters team was able to frighten the Stars and Stripes champions with its Italian players like the evergreen Vescovi, and Meneghin, Pozzecco, Santiago and Zanus Fortes, supported by foreign players Allen, Wucherer and Segunda.
Together with the two Bologna teams and Treviso, the team owned by Mr Bulgheroni seems to have recovered and now is ready to assert the Italian leadership in Europe, at the level of clubs, too. After the current championship has started with ups and downs, the strong emotions and the awareness of being able to conquer a place among the strongest basketball teams in the world - gained after the match against the Spurs - should be very important at a psychological level to spur the Roosters to win again in Italy, too.
 

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