Nico Mannion does not forget meeting with Kobe Bryant
The words of Nico Mannion
Nico Mannion gave a long interview to Olimpia Tv, starting with his papà “I have never seen him play. I know something, that they told me, the coaches, the fans. Today è he is my biggest critic and at the same time my biggest fan. I liked Steve Nash, but not only him. I used to watch a little bit’ all the players. My father and I would watch games together, and he would point out what was happening on the court, he would tell me did you see why he’ passed, did you see why he’ shot? If there’è help then the right pass è this or that, and I was very very small. I was seven, eight years old, I liked it and we did it often”.
"Every summer I would go back to Italy. The relatives on my mother’s side didn’t know English so I would speak Italian with them for six weeks. And my mother spoke Italian to me so even in America I felt quite Italian. The Italian culture in my house there’è always been, my mother cooked Italian. For example, at dinner, in America everybody eats alone, separate. We didn’t. We ate all together, as a family, as we do in Italy, without the phone at hand. In Italy è normal, but in America it è not. I have always been Italian”.
Mannion played in the NBA with the Golden State Warriors: “The most beautiful thing è was seeing how certain champions work every day. Everyone can watch the games, but seeing every day from when they arrive to when they leave how they work makes you understand whyé Steph Curry è one of the greatest players ever; whyé Klay Thompson è one of the greatest shooters in the world; whyé Draymond Green è a champion”.
He concludes with an anecdote about Kobe Bryant: "I was small, very small. We were living in Salt Lake City. It was the playoffs. The Lakers won the game and closed the series against the Jazz. I told my father that I would like to meet Kobe Bryant. He suggested that I wait for him in the tunnel, where they come out, because he would come by. He also said that Kobe knew Italian and if I said something to him in Italian maybe I would get his attention. It was soì. He stopped for a few minutes, took me on his knee. We talked not about basketball, but about life. He asked me how I went to school, asked if I listened to my parents’ advice. È a small episode, but I will carry it with me forever”.
