Nico Mannion immediately makes a promise to Olimpia Milano.
The words of Nicol Mannion
Pallacanestro Olimpia Milano announced that it has reached a multi-year agreement with point guard Niccolò Mannion, 1.90, born in Siena on March 14, 2001, from Openjobmetis Varese.
"I am proud and deeply motivated to be part of a companyà so prestigious and with its history. My intention è to make available to staff and teammates all the energy I will have; to achieve together with them the best results. I will work hard every day, aiming to win as much as possible in all competitions. My desire è to prove that I am a player up to this level, but even more, I want to contribute to the successes of the club. I am open to learning as much as possible because I am aware that I still have great room for improvement as a player. Finally, I want to thank Olimpia for this opportunity’ and what’ was done to bring me to Milan”.
Born in Siena to an American father – Pace Mannion, six NBA teams and then a very long European career, almost all of it in Italy, with Cantù and Treviso as important stops – and an Italian mother – Gaia Bianchi, a former national volleyball team player -, Nico Mannion è grew up in Italy before moving with his family to the United States, to Salt Lake City and finally to Arizona. He attended Pinnacle High School in Phoenix, which he led to the state title in 2018, finishing the season averaging 23.4 points and 5.8 assists. In 2019, he led his team to its second consecutive title finishing with 43.4 points and 6.2 assists average in addition to the Arizona player of the year title. In 2019 è he landed at the’University of Arizona. At season’s end, è was included in the Pac 12 conference’s first rookie quintet and second overall quintet and finally è declared for the NBA drafts. Chosen by the Golden State Warriors with the number 48. In his first pro year, he played 30 games for the Warriors (4.1 points and 2.3 assists per contest) and nine in the G-League for the Santa Cruz Warriors (19.3 points and 6.8 assists average). In 2021, he signed for Virtus Bologna where he è stayed two seasons playing one in Eurocup and the second in EuroLeague. In the Italian league he had 9.4 points and 4.6 assists in 2021/22 and 10.5 points and 3.3 assists in 2022/23. In 2023 he è moved to Baskonia playing 20 games between EuroLeague and Spanish league and then moved to Varese where he ended the season with 20.3 points and 6.6 assists per contest.
Nico Mannion played with the Italian national team in the 2017 Under-16 European Championship (19.9 points per game) and in the same year he debuted with the senior national team. In 2021 he scored17.7 points and dished out 4.0 assists in the Belgrade Olympic qualifying tournament won by the Azzurri. At the Tokyo Olympics he scored 12.5 points per game and distributed 4.5 assists. He then also played the 2022 European Championships and the 2024 Olympic qualifiers.
