Melli and Messina at the center of every comment after a day that marked the separation of the Captain from Olimpia. Where and from whom does this choice come?
Nicolò Melli he will not play next season for Olimpia Milano. For some it was in the air, for others it was unthinkable, but in the end all that matters is the reality which is that expressed by a cold press release that tore the sky of local, and consequently European, basketball, on any 20th of June, rich only of market rumors in temporary abstinence from the game.
See more
Trying to understand is normal although the jungle of presumed truths that accompanies a sensational market movement is no small obstacle.
THE SEASON, THE TENSIONS
It is certainly no secret that the relationship between Coach and Captain was not simple. The scudetto arrived because it concerns, as Melli rightly said, professionals who have «we have in common the fact of wanting the good of Olimpia». But then other words carried a lot of weight and in particular that «Our relationship has been destructive at times» it was clear enough.
Strong characters, perhaps sometimes excessively angular, and a series of situations that at the end of tormented months from the second European path which is largely unsatisfactory, not to say disastrous, in relation to the forces deployed, they could not be erased from both with the tricolor medicine, the right is important.
The black week of the double round between Oaka and Sinan Erdem remains the one in which the last nail in the coffin of Milan’s European hopes was placed. The great tension in Istanbul, with an astonished Digbeu commenting, was one of the steps that led us to what happened yesterday. And there, on the European side of Istanbul we arrived after an extremely nervous match in Athena two days earlier, as well as exactly a month after that “defense of goal difference” in Piraeus which no one liked, let alone the most competitive of the Milanese players .
The rest are locker room stories that must be Las Vegas style stories, what happens there must be there, even in today’s social world.
PUBLIC WORDS, PRIVATE TRUTH
A meeting at the end of summer 2023 to try to discuss the duration of a possible renewal, then the great silence until the end of April.
Yes, this is the story of the alleged renewal proposals made to the Captain. There can be no refusal in the face of a lack of proposals for eight long months. And this is a situation that has been well known to a very large number of professionals for many weeks, not yesterday. Supporting simply parallel realities today is a complicated exercise and would require clarity deriving from the facts.
For this reason we had repeated shocks when we first heard that «For months the player has been aware of the club’s desire to continue together» to then add, only later, that it was will «also the coach’s»an underlining that seemed at least peculiar to us.
Recent news is that of several recent interviews (Basket On-ER the very latest) of the Milanese President-Coach in which the desire to retain Melli was reiterated as being aware of the player and the agency that represents him.
It is true that we live in a world in which communicative success derives more from how you say something rather than from its truthfulness, however when reality clashes with words it is legitimate to ask yourself a few questions.
It’s probably just a question of those market dynamics full of half-truths which perhaps in this case are a little less so. A third, a tenth…
THE CHOICE OF MESSINA
Milan is a city of football, not basketball and everyone knows this too. Probably a similar situation with Lautaro or the Milan captain would have seen the deployment of hordes of reporters under the club headquarters and the homes of the protagonists.
In our case, in our little Italian world, the little bird is enough, yes the famous one at work near the Forum since the days of Alessandro Gentile’s baskets in Repesa’s Milan. We know, it’s spring, the season of singing and truth for the birds themselves and then knowing certain dynamics becomes easier.
Ettore Messina has chosen to continue without Nik Melli and to build his next Olimpia on Nikola Mirotic. We had heard of all this several times during the season, we had confirmation yesterday.
In conclusion it wasn’t even a very difficult thing to understand if we look at the market, concluded and in conclusion, of the last 365 days or so. Inside Mirotic, in the role of your Captain, almost inside LeDay, the one you freed just when you re-signed Melli himself, many other options in the role. An emblematic tweet from a journalist on the piece is logical like few others, Marco Pagliariccio explained it just yesterday with disarming simplicity.
See more
It took little to communicate the decision, both privately and with a statement. The frost, precisely.
THE CONSISTENCY OF A CHOICE
Ultimately what was decided by the Milanese plenipotentiary has a characteristic that any type of criticism will never be able to undermine, that is coherence.
Nik Melli is not a person, rather than a player, who gives in to things he doesn’t agree with. He discusses it, fights for principles, loves confrontation albeit always from that perspective described above of putting the team before everything and everyone, as he has always done. From Milan to Bamberg, from Fener to the Milanese return.
Ettore Messina he has clear, direct ideas and is a person who is not very open to criticism, it is enough to remember many examples with the press without going into locker room details. He decided that a figure of a certain weight was now too “in the middle” and decided not to set aside what happened during these troubled months and to consider it sufficient to say enough is enough. And he certainly has technical ideas that led him to “no mas”.
You can have all possible theories on the good or bad of this choice, both technically and morally, but precisely The Coach doesn’t lack consistencyif not for those statements mentioned above which we believe were highly avoidable.
Ultimately, and it must be repeated because it is a key passage in the whole story, if for eight months you do not make a renewal offer to an expiring player of the value and importance of Nik Melli and you believe that it is sufficient to present yourself at the end of April with that offer, we can reconfirm that the desire to retain him does not appear so evident or no? And therefore the choice made two days ago, made official yesterday, cannot be surprising?
MONEY, ROLE AND ASPIRATIONS
Money matters, of course they matter. Let’s leave aside cloying and sappy situations about flags etc. Obviously we also had to talk about money, who wouldn’t. But they are not everything in the thoughts of a player, especially at a certain age, and it is one of the reasons why many confirmed Melli’s renewed desire to think about a stay in Milan.
What is certain is that everything would perhaps have been easier to face when faced with the prospect of seasons finally being “4” and not “5” to plug holes and defensive gaps of at least two, three teammates. Which Melli did without batting an eyelid. Always. Now he would have had a different impact in terms of centrality, but certainly confirmed as “5”, alternating mainly with Josh Nebo. Protecting the career of someone over thirty by extending it with more limited uses is excellent, continuing to deploy him out of role remains something we will never understand.
Among the trophies the player is missing is certainly the Euroleague, which he missed by “MVP like Jerry West” in 2018 in Belgrade, as well as a heavy medal with the Azzurri. Also here some clarity in the club’s choices that it was actually aimed at building a winning roster would have helped relationships. These last two stormy years are certainly not what pushed us in that direction.
Phil Jacskon said that «good teams become great when we trust each other and put aside the “I” for the “We”. Here, it applies to the players, on the pitch, as well as to the staff, off.
OFFERS TO MELLI
All the great offers, the rumors circulating about golden salaries, the certainties we don’t know are based on what one can earn much more abroad, are colossal bullshit at the moment.
Why? For one simple reason, which is that until yesterday no market operator in Europe really believed that Olimpia wanted to separate from Melli. We were thinking about market dynamics and nothing more. Now those negotiations will come to life with real offers and the step of simple chatter will be overcome.
Let’s be clear, Nik Melli is not a victim of the executioner Messina, he is only the direct protagonist of a choice which, however it goes, will strengthen another Euroleague team. And not by little.
Nicely, but perhaps not only, just yesterday a profound connoisseur of the Euroleague world commented to us like this: «Many people will be celebrating now. Thanks to Messina it can now be signed at very low costs.”
Milan thus separates from Nik Melliwill probably register the withdrawal of Kyle Hines (or at least the farewell), a year after that of Gigi Datome. Two years ago it was the turn of Chacho, who headed back to Madrid after waiting too long for a renewal proposal in an ominous resemblance to the current situation, although what emerged publicly told different stories. One locker room that loses such an avalanche of personality in just a few seasons cannot help but be affected and the hope, for the good of the red and whites, is that Messina’s leadership is such as to make up for all this, even if the pitch is one thing, the touchline is another.
As always in sport, it will be the pitch itself that creates indisputable results. Who was wrong, who did well, who will win and who will lose, all concepts that the bright scoreboards and trophy rooms will clarify for us.
To date no one has won, the only defeat is Olimpia. Or rather, there is actually another winner and that is whoever Melli will sign.
