Carlo Della Valle from Alba, with some noble blood in his veins, was part of a generation of very talented Italian players, those born in the early 60s and led by Antonello Riva. But there were also Walter Magnifico, Ario Costa, Alessandro Fantozzi just to name a few. Della Valle was the least “elegant” of them all: looking indeed as a playmaker coming directly from the future. In America, Magic Johnson exploded, and he was a 2.05, point-man. Della Valle almost reached two meters of height, had long arms, was slouching, it was the poster boy of atypicality. And he was difficult to understand. Turin, which had a strong team, sent him to Livorno when he was too young to have a clear role for one the best team in the country. Then he was loaned for one more year to Vigevano. And finally he returned at home, for four years. The years in which Berloni Torino played for the title, coached by a milanese, Dido Guerrieri, and a sworn opponent of Milan. Twice they met in the semifinals, Olimpia and Auxilium. Della Valle was the player who more than any other else created problems to Mike D’Antoni: he was taller, had very long arms and did not pay his proverbial slowness. In addition, Della Valle knew how to penetrate by improvising. “When he starts a movement, he does not even have the slightest idea of ​​what he is going to do,” said Dan Peterson. He could slaloms, change direction, he was a kind of precursor of the Eurostep. Turin lost in 1985 because Joe Barry Carroll at Pala Ruffini dominated the game and in 1986 because the Olimpia, after losing game 1 at Palalido, invented a special comeback to overturn the series and reach the final. Della Valle moved to Rome in 1987 for two years and he was a top player before returning to Turin for another four seasons. In 1990 he scored 14.9 points per game; two years later he had averaged 4.3 assists per game. In 1993 he was in Pistoia, when Amedeo was born. Carlo stopped playing in 1994, when he was  just 32. He had a relatively short but successful career. However he never played a European championship with the National Team. He never played in the Italian League finals.

Here begins another story. The ADV story. Amedeo Della Valle, who in his career almost always wore the number 8 as his father did in Turin (see above: brings the ball and pulls from three with his left hand), the legendary number 8 “forbidden” in Milan by the legend of Mike D’Antoni. He arrives in Olimpia at 25 but he has already played two championship series; he won a MVP Supercup trophy against Olimpia in Turin; he has already played a European Championship, in 2015, and now he is a National Team key member and he has obtained some individual awards in Eurocup. Olimpia is the next step for a player expected to be great, ego emerged in Casale Monferrato and with an American vocation. In short, he has already surpassed his father’s levels which does not diminished what Carlo was. He was a great player. No questions about that.

In the United States he had gone on vacation, like so many others. But also to train. And he fell in love with Miami and the United States in general. At one point they called him from the Findlay Prep High School in Henderson, Nevada, in the Las Vegas suburbs, a sort of multi-ethnic “basketball factory”. Before him Cory Joseph and Tristan Thompson, NBA level players, played there, then Anthony Bennett who was the number 1 pick of the draft even if he failed. In the Nevada desert he immediately showed his best skill: the shot. If Carlo was a driver, a left-handed creative player, with a shot from outside built over time; Amedeo is smooth, stylistically perfect, a natural born shooter. In his one year at Findlay he set the school record for most threes made in one season with 66. His coach at Findlay, Michael Peck called him “a multidimensional guard, who has instinct, knows how to play, understands the spacing, plays hard, moves the ball. You do not have to explain everything to him, because he understands basketball by himself”.

In 2012 he chose Ohio State among the many colleges that wanted him, including UCLA, Gonzaga and Michigan. A high-level program in a competitive conference, with two NCAA Tournaments he played in, even with a marginal role. The point-guard was Aaron Craft, now at Monaco but seen in Italy in Trento; the coach was Thad Matta, a very important name, and the assistant Chris Jent, the blond shooter who played in Italy among other places also in Reggio Emilia. His moment of glory took place in 2014, during the Big Ten tournament, the quarterfinal game against Nebraska. Down by 19, Thad Matta called his shooter off the bench, a player full of energy, a fighter. Della Valle scored 12 points and changed momentum and the score. “But it was his defense to win the game, he made three blocks, he had two steals, much more than the 12 points that he scored,” Matta said.

Between one American season and the other, during the summer of 2013 he led the Italian national team to the European Under 20 gold-medal in Estonia after averaging 18 points per game two years earlier at the Under 18 European Championships. He was the competition’s MVP. He had a tournament-high of 27 points against Spain in the quarterfinals, including the winning three with two seconds left in the game, after two moves to drive and finally a stepback (it’s below).

He scored 19 points in the final, 17 of them in the second half, including the three that topped a long comeback (see video below. He finished with 13.0 points per game. Before him competition MVPs have been players such as Igor Rakocevic, Nikos Zisis, Sani Becirovic, Ersan Ilyasova, Milos Teodosic, Nikola Mirotic, Leo Westermann. After him, Cedi Osman (Turkey, now in Cleveland in the NBA) was the Under 20’s MVP followed by Marko Guduric (Serbia, now at Fenerbahce).

A few months later, after finishing the second year at Ohio State, he returned to Italy to become a professional player. Olimpia was interested, but it did not have a spot to raise him appropriately. He signed for Reggio Emilia, looking for minutes between Rimas Kaukenas and then Pietro Aradori and last year also Manuchar Markoishvili. A Eurochallenge won as a role player was followed by a Supercup triumph and the MVP trophy and two championship finals lost, one against Olimpia in 2016. Last season he reached the Eurocup semifinals stage, he was included in the first All-Eurocup team, he was also the Eurocup second-best scorer after Scottie Wilbekin of Darussafaka who won the title. But he had this great desire to step to the next level. He dreamed of the NBA, quite rightly, but the EuroLeague represents the best basketball league behind it. Meanwhile, he is a staple of the Italian national team. Against Romania in the qualifications for the World Cup in 2019 he had 29 points. More is yet to come.