Olimpia Milano, technical rehearsal for director: three names
The season is not yet over, but Olimpia Milano, still in the running for the Scudetto and fresh from yet another European disappointment, has already been active in the market. Besides the names of Darius Thompson and Alessandro Pajola, the club would also be considering RJ Cole, currently at Reyer Venezia. The Venetian club would like to keep him, but there is a clause in the player’s contract that would allow him to free himself to land in the Euroleague. In the background there is also Zalgiris Kaunas, interested in bringing back to Lithuania the 1999 class from Union City, who has already put himself in the spotlight with Rytas Vilnius in the country of Arvydas Sabonis.
Cole experienced a season of the highest level in Laguna, ending the championship with an average of 16.8 points in LBA and with 12.9 points, 2.4 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game in EuroCup, touching a peak of 25 points in the challenge against Manresa. Numbers that have made him one of the most coveted point guards on the European scene, with his name ending up in the notebook of numerous Euroleague clubs. Arriving in Venice in the summer of 2025, the player had presented himself with very clear ideas about his profile: “I definitely define myself as a playmaker, because the thing I like most on the court is to involve my teammates. That said, I can score and I strive to be a very good defender as well.”
The context in which Olimpia is moving is that of a deep restructuring of the directing department. The departure of Quinn Ellis to the NCAA and the possible farewell of Nico Mannion have prompted the Milanese management to explore multiple tracks in parallel. Darius Thompson, U.S. point guard naturalized Italian currently at Valencia, remains the name at the top of the list also because of his ductility: he boasts nine appearances with the Azzurri national team and knows the Italian league well, having worn the Brindisi jersey in 2019-2021. Alessandro Pajola, outgoing from Virtus Bologna, on the other hand, represents the alternative defensive profile sought by several European clubs.
Not only foreigners, however. Among the Italian profiles monitored by the Milanese club is also Andrea Calzavara, the talented 2001 class of APU Udine, but in this case the interest would be limited to a future perspective. The former Brindisi, who grew up in the youth sector of Pallacanestro Varese, has climbed the categories until establishing himself in Serie A as one of the staples of coach Adriano Vertemati’s rotations, with his best performance of the season coming right on Olimpia’s parquet, where he put up 17 points on January 4. The meneghini would have also considered putting him under contract, leaving him one year on loan in Friuli, a proposal that Udine had already firmly rejected. In the past few hours, however, Calzavara himself, responding to fans about his own future, has broken the buck by admitting that staying in Friuli does not depend on him, words that sound less definitive than those of his agent Riccardo Sbezzi, who had previously told Messaggero Veneto, “Andrea is comfortable in Udine and stays where he is.” On the Calzavara track there would also be Virtus Bologna.
