For the third consecutive year, Olimpia has included the Cagliari tournament in its pre-season schedule. Two years ago, it lost the semifinal with Sassari and won the third-place game with Fenerbahce, last year it won the tournament prevailing over Dinamo in the semifinal and then completing the job against Khimki, 79-78. Sergio Rodriguez, 25 points in the final, was named MVP of the competition. This year it is a 3-team tournament: Olimpia will face Dinamo Sassari on Thursday 20, tip-off at 8.30 pm, and Reyer Venezia on Friday 21 (same tip-off time). The games will be streamed by Dinamo Tv. For all the three participants, let alone some scrimmages, this is the official debut, a kind of rehearsal before the Super Cup, next week. Olimpia so far has only played an informal scrimmage with Varese.
SASSARI – Dinamo has a different team from last season, with seven newcomers. Marco Spissu, Stefano Gentile, and the Croatian center Miro Bilan are returning. The newcomers are the Serbian point-man Vasa Pusica (12.9 points and 3.8 assists per game in Pesaro last year), the Croatian guard Filip Kruslin (he comes from Ljubljana, was the MVP of the Croatian Cup in 2019), the Lithuanian forward Eimantas Bendzius, who comes from Vilnius but has already played three seasons in Spain (Obradoiro), the Estonian power forward Kaspar Treier, coming from Ravenna in A2, plus the Americans Jason Burnell (11.7 points and 5.2 rebounds on average in Cantù) and Justin Tillman, last year at Hapoel Gilboa Galil in Israel. Veteran Italian center Luca Gandini replaced Daniele Magro.
VENEZIA – Reyer, who will be faced on the second day and then on Saturday will end its tournament against Dinamo, kept the same core players from last season with the only additions of Lorenzo D’Ercole from Pistoia and the New Zealand center Isaac Fotu, 14.3 points and 5.1 rebounds per game in Treviso. The rest of the team is intact, with Julyan Stone, Stefano Tonut, Michael Bramos, Andrea De Nicolao, Jeremy Chappell, Austin Daye, Mitchell Watt, Valerio Mazzola, Bruno Cerella, Gasper Vidmar.
THE SCHEDULE – Olimpia practiced at the Mediolanum Forum before leaving for Cagliari. All 15 players on the roster left and will then make their official debut on 27 August against Cantù in the Super Cup (this is the debut, but it is actually a game part of Round 6).
