Andrea Bargnani launches the new season of Italian basketball

Less than a month before the Italian basketball Super Cup, the first trophy of the 2025-2026 basketball season, Lega Basket has announced that Andrea Bargnani will be the official Ambassador of the’event, which will be held at the Unipol Forum in Assago on Saturday, September 27 and Sunday, September 28, with the participation of Virtus Bologna, Germani Brescia, Olimpia Milano and Aquila Basket Trento.

“It is a privilege to be able to support the League in such an important moment, because I am convinced that Italian basketball must return to being a reference point at the world level, as it has been in the past – said Bargnani -. My career and my dream were born precisely in the LBA, and for this I will always be deeply grateful to Italian basketball. Today I feel the duty and pleasure of supporting the League in its growth, contributing with my commitment to strengthen the visibility and attractiveness of our basketball movement”.

Satisfaction also from Umberto Gandini, president of LBA: “We have tried in recent years to enhance more and more the protagonists who have made the history of our basketball as evidenced by the naming of the MVP of the season trophy to Dino Meneghin, the best coach to Sandro Gamba and the best scorer to Antonello Riva. Andrea Bargnani, whom I thank for his availability, is one of them and he has certainly contributed to the spread of our sport thanks to the world showcase that only the NBA can ensure, and that he has earned by playing in our league”.

At the age of 1985, Andrea Bargnani was the first Italian (and also the first European) to be selected with the first overall pick in the NBA Draft, in 2006.

His career in North America lasted ten seasons, seven of them with the Toronto Raptors, two with the New York Knicks and one with the Brooklyn Nets. Between 2007 and 2016, the ‘Wizard’ as he is nicknamed, also played 73 games with the national team, participating in the 2007, 2011 and 2015 European Championships.