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We all know well what his greatest passion is Alessandro Mamoli. Or, at least, we can imagine it.
He himself described it as an absurd sensation, “like when you like a girl but you don’t know why”, the one with the basket it is a story that begins from afar.
It begins when, as a child, Alessandro (or, as we call it, “the Mamo”) begins to frequent the Milanese gyms.
He gets to wear the shirt ofOlimpia Milanlands in the United States and then we come to the Mamo we know today: a milestone of Sky Sport. Con 8 NBA Finals4 Final Four NCAA, 4 European Championships and 2 World Cups behind us. But this time she wanted to tell us something different.
In “Dream Games”, the first book written completely independently, the Mamo tells of key episodes of basketball played and not.
The Game of Changewhich sees the Loyola Ramblers eh Mississippi State Bulldogs in 1963. The 1979 NCAA final between Magic Johnson e Larry Bird. The triple of Ray Allen in the 2013 NBA Finals. The last game of Kobe and his tragic passing 4 years later. The comeback ofOlympiad against theAris Thessaloniki in 1986.
Ma “Dream Games” it’s the set of 7 chapters that almost feel like part of a Mamo diary (in which we also find the story of his staff “dream game”, that is, a training match that no one has seen and no one will see May), who feels the need to tell us how he got there what he does and how it came to be that which is.
Basketball is his work, Certain. But not only.
The book is about a dream. “Dream Games”, in the end it is a love story. It touches on various places, various eras, but they all have only one thing in common: unconditional love for this sport.
All of this, contained in little more than 200 pages.
“Dream Games”: interview with Alessandro Mamoli
On the occasion of the event “Sky Christmas Special”held on December 5th at the headquarters of Sky Italia a Milan Rogoredothe author made himself available for a chat about his new book.
Alessandro, let’s talk a little about your new book. First, tell us where we can find it and how the idea for this second book came about.
“You can find it in all bookstores, even if they told me it ended up somewhere. I don’t know if that’s good news or if they never ordered it (ride, n.d.r.), but it can also be easily found on Amazon. On the Internet you can order it both in paperback and in eBook format. The idea was born from the insistence of the publishing house. They think basketball books work, so they’ve been pushing to write this book for a while. I had in mind to write the stories of some matches then, in writing, I managed to contaminate the book with many aspects of my life, both personal and professional. I intertwined the stories of the games I tell and of my life and something quite funny came out, because it is the story of someone who ‘didn’t make it’ because he didn’t manage to be a professional basketball player but only semi-professional. -professional, but who made it because he managed to get to work at Sky as a journalist”.
What chapter were you most keen to write?
“In reality there isn’t one in particular that I carry in my heart the most, they are very different chapters. In the end I found myself writing, for example, a chapter to respond to all those who ask me for advice on starting to do this work, even if it is a chapter that should be updated every week given how our work and technology in general changes . I had a lot of fun writing my ‘dream game’, because we expect the story of a spectacular match and instead it is a particular match that I don’t want to spoil for the good ones who are going to read it. I can also tell you the story of the week I spent in Los Angeles when I talked about Kobe’s passing. It was something I had kept inside, but I felt the duty to return it and free myself from the story of what I had experienced. Those emotions, those sensations that I felt in that week there, I let go of them right away.”
Being a novice journalist, my concern is: how will this work evolve in the future? What do you think will happen with the advent of artificial intelligence? Can our role, that of the journalist, disappear completely?
“I believe and hope not. Artificial intelligence is a little scary, a little it solves many problems. I believe that the journalist’s duty is to always respond to the principles that Americans call ‘the 5 W’s’. You choose the ethical path, you choose the theme but I believe that the analysis part, the criticism part, the development of journalistic content, however advanced an artificial intelligence may be, will never be able to reach the personal point of view. The strength of the journalist, especially in the past and perhaps a little less today, is credibility. You go and read a journalist and, if you like it and think it is valid, it is because you believe that what he writes has a critical sense and gives you something more than others. I hope that that part is never replaced by artificial intelligence because, although advanced, it cannot have personal points of view also linked to a face”.
We know that Italian basketball has always played a very important role in your life. Therefore, a question arises spontaneously. If you had to decide to only comment on one thing between the NBA and LBA for the rest of your life, what would you choose?
“Definitely the NBA for: the amount of games that are played, the attention it receives as a league, the depth of the characters, leads you to have much more content to talk about than other leagues. So I would probably tell you the NBA for this, because every day a game or an event that happens, on or off the court, leads you to carry out analyzes and have a certain continuity with the products you offer.”
We close with a message for our readers: a good reason to pick up your book.
“There isn’t a good reason to take my book (ride, n.d.r.). However, if you love this sport and want to read the stories of someone who wanted to be a basketball player, he came very close and didn’t succeed but, in the second part of his career, he had the opportunity to tell some of the most incredible games in the history of basketball, then it can be fun. It’s not a challenging read, it goes down like a granita. So, if you have some time and want to relax a bit, it could be the right book.”
Thanks the Sky team for the possibility, and the interviewee for the kindness shown.
2023-12-06 23:13:49
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