![]() ![]() ![]() S&S not only agreed to do it, they sent him an advance to go to Italy to write it and that's where the adventure begins. Remember, this was well before the game had become globalized. Then, to his surprise, he was contacted about an idea he'd pitched to Simon & Schuster about writing a book on Italian pro basketball and all the Yanks playing there. Jim Patton was at a real nadir in his life at the beginning of the book: A crummy graveyard shift job at a nursing home, losing a job writing about the Portland Trailblazers for the Willamette Week paper, in the middle of a sad divorce.things were really going badly. However, this book is ultimately about so much more than basketball. If you're only looking to read about basketball, you'll find plenty of great stuff. It just seemed like this would be an interesting read for those reasons alone, and there WERE plenty of stories of players like Darryl Dawkins, Bob McAdoo, Rick Mahorn, Micheal Ray Richardson, etc. Italy and Greece were considered the two top basketball countries in Europe in the 1990's, and both are known for having rabid fans. When I first picked up a copy of "Il Basket d'Italia," it was out of curiosity about pro basketball in Italy and interest in the many Americans, including several former NBA players, who've spent time there. ![]()
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