When I was a baby, if I cried, my parents didn’t give me a blanket. They gave me a ball and sent me to the little court in our backyard. I must have cried a lot because I was one of those kids who could dribble and shoot at 5 years old. I grew up in a village of 2,000 people, 45 minutes outside of Milan. My father, Vittorio, was a big-time player in Italy, but we never talked about basketball. He never came to my games. He said he didn’t want to step on my coaches’ toes.
Model of a Comeback
