Prior to their upcoming match against Latvia, which marks the first of two crucial games to determine Italy’s final ranking between 8th and 5th place, several of Gigi Datome’s fellow players took the opportunity to share their sentiments with Eurohoops and the Italian media. They expressed their eagerness to honor the legendary former Olimpia Milan player in a fitting manner.
“It will surely be awesome to honor a captain, but most importantly an amazing person like Gigi. Our goal is to celebrate him in the best possible way,” Alessandro Pajola said. “He gave us the example of sacrificing ourselves and giving the maximum for this jersey. We learned what to do from him. We will have to play like it was still a do-or-die game, after what he taught us.”
While Alessandro Pajola has served as a teammate and on-court adversary in recent years, notably during their time together at Virtus Bologna, Stefano Tonut has shared his daily experiences with the former NBA player ever since he became a part of Olimpia Milan in the summer of 2022.
“I thought about it this morning,” Tonut said. “It’s difficult to find motivation in playing two games which are relatively important, after such a heavy loss. One of our stimuli comes from the fact that it is as high as possible in the FIBA ranking. But our thoughts are mainly to celebrate Luigi properly.”
