Dino Meneghin
Described by Dan Peterson – a former American professional basketball coach –D as “one of Italy’s best players”, Meneghin was later the coach of Olimpia Milano. He played a total of 836 games and scored 8,560 points in the Italian Championship. He is one of only two Italians to enter into the Basketball Hall of Fame, on September 5 2003
http://blogs.20minutos.es/quefuede/files/meneghin1.jpg
head to head
Luol Deng
Deng plays for Miami Heat and Great Britain. He is one of only two British players in the NBA (Joel Freeland being the other). He has appeared in 677 NBA regular season games, and has scored in double figures on a massive 557 occasions. In 209 of these games he has passed the 20-point mark.
times – more than any other nation – and regularly feature in the latter stages of the competition. This gives them an opportunity – lost to British teams – to regularly compete against the best, with the accompanying rewards of serious exposure and prize money. The lack of this in Britain means there is no ability to attract exciting players or media coverage, and that means no ability to bring in fans. To put this into numerical terms, Olimpia Milano – the most decorated team in Italian basketball – play in the 12,500 capacity Mediolanum Forum. In the UK, only four teams meet the minimum seating requirement for the third tier of European competition – EuroChallenge – set at a lowly 2,000 seats . With no fans, there is no steady income. With no steady income, there is no ability to challenge in Europe. Without the ability to challenge in Europe, there is no way to attract fans, and so the vicious cycle goes on. As a result, despite the achievements of the national side, basketball seems destined to remain on the side-lines of British sport for someyears to come.
SPORT