Gianmarco Pozzecco compares current players with his generation / News - Basketnews.com

Gianmarco Pozzecco thinks today's younger generation is more professional than he was during his playing days. Players in his time were rougher and didn't need family as much, Pozzecco says.

Credit: FIBA Credit FIBA

Gianmarco Pozzecco has been a professional basketball player for almost 20 years. He's now a professional coach, guiding the Italian national team in international competitions.

Known as 'the atomic fly', Pozzecco has won the silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, knocking out favorite Lithuania in the semifinal and only losing to Argentina in the final.

With 2022 NBA Draft no. 1 pick Paolo Banchero's participation in the national team still in question, Pozzecco thinks that we have to look at young prospects in a different way than it used to be done in his time.

"We have to consider 18-year-olds as suitable candidates [for the national team]. The national team has taken on a different aspect today compared to our times," he explained during the 'Training the Blue' event held by the Italian National Olympic Committee. "It is no longer a selection but a team. A precise structure is therefore needed. Together with my fantastic staff and the federation, I want to create a family."

"I am convinced that today's kids are much more professional than we were. Professionalism leads you to have an extreme sense of anxiety, which you can only defeat in a family context," the coach said. "In my day, we were perhaps more sons of bitches, we didn't need the family so much. They do, staying a month and a half away from home is not easy."

Regarding Banchero, the decision is entirely in his court, Pozzecco told.

"We've agreed that he will take a break and decide at the end of the [NBA] championship," Pozzecco revealed. "He is between us and America, and it is his choice. We will respect it in any case."

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