Olimpia’s season officially began at 11.30am at the Unipol Forum with the full roster, which is unusual for a first practice. 15 players out of 15 were available and all of them completed the entire training session of approximately 95 minutes. No need to insert aggregates to plug leaks as often happened in the past due to the national teams calendar. The pre-season menu includes a week of training and finally the scrimmage behind closed doors against Varese on Saturday.

Coach Ettore Messina run the first practice session for the sixth consecutive season. Neither in Serie A nor in the EuroLeague there are coaches at the helm of their current teams for more time. He enters this season with a league record of 136-44, or 75.6% winning percentage. Shavon Shields is the longest-tenured player in Milan: he begins his fifth season in the red and white. The EuroLeague top scorer in the club’s history is two appearances away from 100 with Olimpia in EuroLeague. Among the Italians, Pippo Ricci is the veteran: he begins his fourth season in Milan. Obviously, we are counting Giordano Bortolani’s years in the acaddemy. Among the new players, the only ones with Italian experience are Zach LeDay and Ousmane Diop; in the EuroLeague four “rookie”, Dimitrijevic, Brooks, McCormack and Diop himself.

Obviously, this is a deeply renewed team: for example, in the EuroLeague the returning players produced 47.3 percent of the points scored overall last season. And the average age has dropped to around 28 per player, and only because of the presence of 37-year-old veteran Fabien Causeur.

Olimpia will play four official friendlies plus two scrimmages before the Bologna Super Cup.