Even though I am from a soccer-mad country, I have always been fascinated by basketball in the United States, a remote paradise for a basketball fan located on the other side of the ocean. I started to correspond with several college coaches. These generous coaches included Bob Zuffelato, former head coach of Boston College and now with the Toronto Raptors as a scout; Chuck Daly, head coach at the University of Pennsylvania, who went on to win two consecutive NBA titles with the Detroit Pistons and was the (only) Dream Team coach, guiding the team to a gold medal–winning performance at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona; and the mythical Lou Carnesecca, the Hall of Fame coach of St. John’s University.
Soon after, I started to write about American basketball for Italian publications and I regularly made trips to the United States, where I covered many regular-season NBA games, NBA All-Star games, and the NBA Finals. From coast to coast, I met dozens of coaches and players over the years. In short, the U.S. and NBA arenas became my second home.
I also started to coach a local team in Cremona, Italy, my northern Italian city on the banks of the Po River, and I became more intimately involved with the beauty of this game. It is from my immersion in the details of the game’s fundamentals and the defensive and offensive alignments that the NBA Coaches Playbook was born.
So many people have given of their time, experience, and wisdom in helping create this book that it is not possible to name all of them. I do wish to thank all those known and anonymous who have contributed ideas and information. I would like to extend a high five to Jack Ramsay, Hubie Brown, Paul Westhead, Del Harris, Jimmy Lynam, Lionel Hollins, Don Casey, Gary Vitti, Julius Erving, Pat Williams, Brian McIntyre, Terry Lyons, and Mike Bantom. These and many other supportive people introduced me to the fascinating world of the NBA and helped shape the ideas for the book.
I would also like to acknowledge Gerald Couzens, a former Princeton University player and writer, who opened his home to me in New York. We later collaborated on other books about NBA basketball that were published in the United States and Italy. NBA Coaches Playbook has been a long time in coming. Michael Goldberg, executive director of the National Basketball Coaches Association, believed in this project right from the start, shared his expertise and advice in many areas, and was my biggest fan throughout the entire process. High fives are also in order for the NBA head and assistant coaches, who wrote the chapters of this book. They carved time out of their busy days to answer questions and countless e-mails. I would also like to thank David Stern, whom I met before he became NBA commissioner and then the man behind the global success of the NBA.
In the book business, you can have a project in your mind, but you need to find people who believe and trust in your vision and help turn an idea into a book. In addition to Michael Goldberg, I must thank Ted Miller, vice president of special acquisitions at Human Kinetics, who enthusiastically supported my book concept. He is a great fan of the game and he shared many of his ideas and offered countless suggestions. I also thank Leigh Keylock, developmental editor, and Laura Podeschi, assistant editor at Human Kinetics, for their enthusiasm, hard work, and patience. Thanks also to Mino Boiocchi, the gifted photographer, and the players who posed for the photographs: Quad Lollis, J.R. Reynolds, Damien Ryan, Corey Albano, and Junior N’Guessan.
NBA Coaches Playbook is, above all, a resource book, and it couldn’t have been written without the help of all the coaches, players, and executives from around the world whose thoughts are embodied in this book. I am indebted, too, to Patrick Baumann, FIBA secretary general, and Zoran Radovic, FIBA director of basketball development.
Many thanks to my team at the Cantelli Editore in Bologna: Filippo Mazzoni, Corrado De Belvis, Mirco Melloni, Gastone Marchesi, Donato Viglione, and Lisa Cavallini. They helped me over the years as I put the book together. My thanks also to three other basketball nuts like me: Achille Saulle, Dario Adami, and Michele Talamazzi. A special dedication and infinite thanks to Ornella, my very precious “assistant coach,” the best possible.