Sports Poets Society

di CHRISTIAN GIORDANO © Piaceva alle donne perché era bello André Leducq, le beau Dédé. Il bel Dedé.  E perché vinceva. Tanto. Tra gli anni Venti e Trenta del Novecento: due Tour de France e altrettanti Critérium International, una Roubaix, una Parigi-Tours, un mondiale dilettanti.  Famoso per il look, il fascino e il buon umore, è stato uno dei primi sex-symbol del ciclismo francese. Parigino di Saint-Ouen, dove era nato nel 1904, e marsigliese d’adozione, ebbe in dono la prima bici a cinque anni. A venti, era iridato a Parigi. Professionista dal 1927, finì subito quarto alla Grande Boucle , con le prime tre delle sue 25 vittorie di tappa totali al Tour. Un record che durò fino alle 34 del "Cannibale" belga Eddy Merckx, poi eguagliato dal britannico Mark Cavendish. Corridore completo, forte allo sprint e in montagna, vinse all’"Inferno del Nord" nel 1928 la sua unica classica monumento.  Nel 1930 conquistò il Tour duellando per tre set...

https://aroundthegame.com/post/nikola-jokic-tripla-doppia-nuggets-invincibili/ Alberto Dagnino  | 19/06/2019 |  Storie Una retrospettiva sulla fallimentare scelta di Milicic al Draft del 2003, tra suggestioni, voci e falsi miti. A cavallo del nuovo millennio, nella NBA si diffonde la convinzione che il basket internazionale sia finalmente degno di attenzione: giocatori europei e non solo possono essere armi importanti anche nel sistema statunitense. Una convinzione sacrosanta, non c’è che dire, ma di per sé non sufficiente a salvarsi dai disastri. Nello specifico, l’ascesa di Dirk Nowitzki ha illuso orde di GM che ogni giocatore del vecchio continente che si avvicinasse o superasse i 7 piedi potesse, con un po’ di duro lavoro, diventare un’arma letale in grado di cambiare le sorti di ogni franchigia. Gli esempi sono tantissimi. Draft 1999: Aleksandar Radojevic viene scelto alla dodici, salvo giocare tre sole partite in due anni prima di tornare in Europa. Tre scelte dopo di lu...

https://www.gazzetta.it/Nba/06-09-2014/nba-oden-thabeet-milicic-morrison-brown-quanti-flop-ultimi-anni-90374104806.shtml DARKO MILICIC (PICK N.2, 2003)   Arrivare in Nba come seconda scelta assoluta di un draft che sarà per sempre ricordato fra i più talentuosi di sempre non è facile.  Essere europei e venire scelti dietro al solo LeBron James e davanti a giocatori destinati a un futuro da All Star, come Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh e Dwayne Wade, di certo non aiuta.  Approdato ai Detroit Pistons di Larry Brown, Milicic esaudisce subito quello che è il sogno di ogni giocatore di basket che si rispetti e mette in bacheca il titolo Nba 2004, giocando però meno di 5 minuti per gara (1,4 punti di media) e col Palace of Auburn Hills esulta a ogni suo canestro come fosse un gol.  Dopo altri due anni a Detroit, Darko gira in cerca di fortuna fra Orlando, Memphis, Minnesota, New York e Boston. Le sue medie si alzano e diventano quasi accettabili per un giocatori di terza...

https://www.fiba.basketball/news/imagine-what-milicic-could-have-done-with-a-different-mindset VALENCIA ( Jeff Taylor's Eurovision ) - On a warm summer night, 17 years ago at Madison Square Garden in New York, NBA Commissioner David Stern stepped up to the lectern and announced to a worldwide audience: "With the second pick of the 2003 NBA Draft, the Detroit Pistons select Darko Milicic from Serbia and Montenegro." That, everyone, was the highlight of Milicic's career. Having just turned 18, the world was at his feet. The young giant that had bleached hair was set to be the latest player from the Balkans to take the NBA by storm and for the fans back home, well, they had a young center that was going to help their national team for years to come. That, of course, didn't happen, with Milicic averaging 6.0 points and 4.2 rebounds per game in his decade in the NBA. With Serbia and Montenegro (2005 and 2006) and then Serbia (2007), he never got close to the podium, al...

https://www.slamonline.com/the-magazine/ben-wallace-96-draft/ BY RYNE NELSON - NOVEMBER 19, 2020 As a junior in high school, a 16-year-old Ben Wallace spent day after day cutting hair for his friends and neighbors. He charged $3 a cut, eventually saving up enough money to attend Charles Oakley ’s week-long basketball camp. With $50 in his pocket, Ben left his 800-person town of White Hall, AL, and traveled over 100 miles west on Route 80 to Oak’s camp. While he was an impressive multi-sport athlete, Ben had never spent time in an organized basketball setting where the focus was on skill and development. As luck would have it, Wallace would not only get a chance to meet Oakley—who just finished his fifth straight season in the NBA averaging a double-double—but Oak challenged Ben to a game of one-on-one. “He took an interest in me,” Wallace says. “I guess he saw something in me that I really didn’t see in myself at the time. He sort of called me out in front of the camp and put me on di...

Detroit Pistons GM Joe Dumars with acquisition Allen Iverson. Gregory Shamus/Getty Images https://bleacherreport.com/articles/577265-joe-blow-joe-dumars-and-his-10-worst-moves-for-the-detroit-pistons-franchiseCOLIN SHEAJANUARY 19, 2011 COLIN SHEA  - JANUARY 19, 2011 Joe Dumars brought NBA Championship back to Detroit. For that, he deserves much praise and adoration. But, understand, he does not deserve a free pass because of it. No GM over the past decade has been a better embodiment of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde than Joe D , and as a Pistons fan, nothing is more frustrating than an unpredictable decision-maker. To the detriment of Detroit fans, most of Dumars' lackluster moves have been bunched together over the past few seasons. As quickly as Joe built the bond of trust between him and the city, he is doing everything he can to destroy it. With a few small shreds of leniency remaining, Dumars has only a year or two left to turn this franchise around, and he will need to start b...

Tom Pidgeon/Getty Images https://www.detroitbadboys.com/2015/6/8/8748353/arnie-kander-resigning-detroit-pistons-trainer Retained when Stan Van Gundy restructured the medical area, Arnie Kander is now resigning from the Pistons at the end of June. By  Packey @Detroit4lyfe  Jun 8, 2015, 4:54pm EDT This is sad news. Here is the release from the Pistons: AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - The Detroit Pistons announced today that Arnie Kander has informed the organization of his intent to resign as physical therapist effective June 30. Kander has served as a member of the Pistons' training staff since 1992 when he was named the club's first strength and conditioning coach. "Arnie is an innovator who helped define the art of physical training for athletes in our league," said Tom Gores, Principal Owner of Palace Sports & Entertainment, the Detroit Pistons and Chairman and CEO of Platinum Equity. "He's been a great Piston for more than two decades, and on a personal level he...

https://today.wayne.edu//news/2016/04/07/wsu-alum-former-pistons-strength-and-conditioning-coach-continues-successful-career-6306 April 7, 2016 As the Detroit Pistons make a run at their first NBA playoff appearance since the 2007-08 season, one Wayne State University alum was on the court for the team’s last NBA Championship in 2004. Arnie Kander spent 23 seasons as the Pistons’ strength and conditioning coach, an innovator in the field who designed and developed the team’s training area in its practice facility to meet the physical conditioning and developmental needs of NBA players. And it all began with an interest in WSU’s physical therapy program. “I loved the physical therapy program because it was very neurologically based,” said Kander, who graduated in 1987 . “I was especially intrigued by the way the mind connects with the nervous system to create muscular movement. And I appreciated Mabel Sharpe, the director of the program at that time, who was a very open and direct teac...

https://gazette.com/sports/woody-paige/woody-paige-nuggets-nba-and-ncaa-coaching-legend-would-love-to-see-a-mile-high/article_1e8cf04c-ae70-11ed-b879-c7ad91af9037.html Woody Paige The Gazette - Feb 16, 2023 The Earth and the basketball are round, and nobody in both worlds would appreciate the Nuggets winning their first championship more than the team’s original anomalous avant-garde coach. “A title for Denver would be great. I’d love it,’’ the legendary Larry Brown said Thursday afternoon. At 82, the Hall of Famer is still around. He has coached 2,602 games in the pros (with a winning percentage of 57) and the colleges (72 percent victories), and, at 5-foot-9, the Little Big Man of Basketball has been in the sport over seven decades and in more than 20 locales. “But the only way players know me now is to google me,’’ he said by phone from Charlotte. Brown always was a basketball Don Quixote, searching for giants and dragons and tilting at windmills and power forwards. As a young man L...