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By Mark Woods

There have been European players gracing the NBA stage from its very inception. While the likes of Dallas Mavericks’ German star Dirk Nowitzki have raised the profile – and credibility – of talent from the other side of the Atlantic in recent years, the best prospects from all over the world have always sought to try their luck in the planet’s strongest league. Some succeeded, some failed to make the transition. But few will have regretted the opportunity.

Maurizio Gherardini. NBAE/Getty Images

Maurizio Gherardini will never play in the NBA’s annual All Star Game. In fact the closest he’ll get to the court will be the occasional visit to practice or a close inspection pre-game. In his own quiet way, he is starting a new revolution: one in which Europeans attempt to make the same kind of impact in management as they do on the parquet.

Earlier this summer, Gherardini was tempted away from his job as general manager of the Benetton Treviso, the Italian club which has become arguably the most prolific producer of talent in the world. There he helped the LEGA side to numerous domestic titles and a place in the Euroleague Final Four, while bringing young prodigies through the ranks.

Then came an invitation from the Toronto Raptors supremo Bryan Colangelo. Want to be our vice-president of basketball development, he asked? Absolutely, Gherardini replied, becoming the first European to hold a senior executive role in the NBA.

“I cannot hide the fact I’m proud of that,” he admits. “I still have friends back in Treviso, and my family, asking me why I wanted to go through all this. But I think that if you are passionate with your love for basketball, and if you grew up as an executive like I did, no matter what the options are in Europe, your dream is to make it to the ultimate level which in our business is the NBA.

“What attracted me was the opportunity to enter the brain-storming process of a NBA club. I had other potential offers in the past but never at this level and with this kind of responsibility. But when Bryan Colangelo and Toronto came along, this was something I wanted to be part of. I do feel like a pioneer. I do hope there will be others after me because that would be a big sign for international basketball.”

There has been a lot of adjustment. He has found good Italian food in Toronto, an absolute necessity. The weather has been OK … so far … but Canadian winters are not like in Italy. However he has had to learn the extensive rules and regulations which govern the NBA and its system of salary limits and trades.

“It was a strange feeling at the start because nobody has done this before,” he confides. “I can’t compare my experience to anyone else and I’m still adjusting, both to the life experience and to working in Toronto. That part should be easy. The difficult part is learning about the other 29 teams in this league but that will be made easier when I fully understand the rules. Once I do that, I’ll feel more comfortable in knowing what can be proposed or not proposed. Then I hope I can bring a different angle to problems or solutions which might arise, a European angle perhaps, which can help us here.”

Others have made a successful transition from Italy to the NBA. Phoenix Suns coach Mike D’Antoni won league championships as player and coach before ending up on a NBA bench. And this October, he will take his team back to Treviso to hold their training camp as part of NBA Europe Live presented by EA Sports.

“It’s a different way of approaching the training camp period in the NBA and Europe,” observes Gherardini. “The European style is a long period. Most of the time, between 7-8 weeks before the season starts, is spent with the assistant coach and the conditioning coaches. And for the first ten days it is all about working on fitness. Whereas with the NBA, you go straight into basketball because the players are responsible for being ready to get started. They know camp opens October 1 and season starts November 1. In Europe, the team which practices together is the team which will start the season. In the NBA, some of those players are still trying to make the team so there is more of an emotional aspect thrown in.”

The gap is closing between Europe’s top clubs and the NBA. Nowhere was it more keenly illustrated than in Toronto a year ago, when then reigning Euroleague champions Maccabi Elite Tel Aviv defeated the Raptors in a pre-season game. Both leagues are learning from each other. And the Atlantic is no longer a barrier between the two.

So what next? Players. Check. Executives. Done. How about a European coach moving from a top club in Italy, Spain or Greece to the NBA? Gherardini believes it will happen. Maybe not this season, or the next. But it is only a matter of time, he insists.

“Players have already found their way into the NBA picture. Today we have one quarter of the league which is non-American. Executives can find their way in – because now we at least have one of them. The next step is the coaches. Unfortunately, I think there are a lot of good coaches in Europe but not all of them are suited for this sort of league and situation. The main barrier at the beginning is always the language barrier. Because a coach who steps in needs to be in control of the language because that means a lot: controlling the work on the floor, the locker room reaction and the relationship with the world around you. And that’s besides your skills as a coach.”

Talent though always rises to the top. Gherardini is the new boy in town and he admits he has much to learn. But someone had to try this first. And where he goes, others will surely follow. The NBA may be the basketball world’s greatest stage but no longer is it an American affair.