Virtus Bologna and their never-ending ambition / News - Basketnews.com

Credit: zumapress.com - Scanpix, Virtus Bologna | BasketNews illustration/A.Zaikauskas Credit zumapress.com - Scanpix, Virtus Bologna | BasketNews illustration/A.Zaikauskas

The days leading to March 8th, the transfer deadline for 7DAYS EuroCup teams were intense in Bologna. Once again, the management had decided to support coach Sergio Scariolo's needs and add new players into the rotation.

Daniel Hackett

MIN:20.12PTS:8 (44.44%)REB:2As:2ST:0BL:0TO:1GM:1ProfileEuroCup2021/2022

With the war in Ukraine ongoing and multiple players' decisions to leave the Russian teams, Virtus Bologna decided to go all-in in the market to make the final push in anticipation of the decisive part of the season, especially for the EuroCup.

On March 3rd, they officially announced the addition of Daniel Hackett with a contract until 2024. According to multiple sources, Hackett will make around €2.7 million in total, around €200.000 for this final part of the season and around €1.2 million for the following years.

The Italian point guard paid around $100.000 to get out of his contract with CSKA Moscow, which would have ended in June. Hackett has always had a friendly relationship with CSKA Moscow's president Andrei Vatutin and a strong bond with coach Dimitris Itoudis, who saw Hackett as a perfect floor general for his system.

But with a war ongoing and his family back in Italy, Daniel wanted to stay closer to home. He grew up in Pesaro, around an hour and a half drive from Bologna, and after many years spent abroad, he felt like this was the right time to go back to Italy.

The original plan for Virtus was to try to sign Hackett during the offseason. The club knew that his contract with CSKA Moscow was going to expire at the end of the season. Since last summer, the first contact with the player started, especially under the input of Scariolo, who immediately put Hackett at the top of his list of potential targets for the team when he joined the club during the last offseason.

Daniel Hackett

Team:Virtus BolognaPosition:PG, SGAge:34Height:199 cmWeight:95 kgBirth place:Forlimpopoli, ItalyProfileNewsStatistics

Virtus had already positioned themselves as the top club in Hackett's shortlist for next season. However, the whole situation in Russia accelerated the process, and the two sides were able to finalize a deal during this season, bringing back Hackett to Italy after almost 7 years since his last experience in the country.

At the beginning of the season, Virtus had decided to rely on two very young players in the point guard position: Virtus Bologna's own Alessandro Pajola and Italian's up-and-coming sensation Nico Mannion. Pajola is 22, Mannion is 20.

During the first part of the season, their inexperience at the highest level cost Virtus on several occasions, and on top of that, both had to deal with a good share of injuries and physical issues.

Mannion had to deal with a lot of bad luck. He suffered from a severe intestinal infection during the offseason, missed the entire training camp, and at the start of the season, he lost almost 15 kilograms and had to start from scratch.

After recovering from the major issue, he started to have back issues and was forced to miss another month of action between December and January. After the back issues, it was time for Covid, which can be very tricky for professional athletes.

And last but not least, he also suffered a minor ankle injury. While struggling to find the right level of fitness, Mannion had troubles in leading Virtus' offense and following Scariolo's system.

The coaching staff felt that a more experienced presence was needed, someone who could also give more defensive presence on the perimeter, and Daniel Hackett fit that profile perfectly.

But in the weeks leading to Daniel Hackett's addition, Virtus Bologna's main target was actually in another role. Scariolo and his staff were pushing the management to add a frontcourt player, someone who could have spent minutes both as 4 and 5.

At first, the management wasn't really convinced to make another addition in that role, which would have meant spending another extra budget. But Scariolo pushed and pushed again, worried by the declining performances of JaKarr Sampson.

The former NBA player was brought in during the beginning of the season after the injury of Ekpe Udoh. He signed a deal until 2023 with a salary in the $800.000-850.000 range, according to a source.

After a promising start, though, Sampson's performances started to deteriorate, and Scariolo began to lose patience with him. On March 3rd, the same day that Hackett was introduced as a new player, Virtus Bologna played and won against Frutti Extra Bursaspor in Eurocup.

The Italian side built a big lead during the third quarter, but they wasted that advantage, suffering a 14-1 run to finish the third quarter, letting the Turkish club back into the game.

During that run, Sampson was on the court and made several mistakes. At the end of the game, Scariolo was definitely not happy with the performances of some of the players and made it clear to send a message both to those players and the front office.

"From now on, I have to change something. I can no longer play those who try but don't produce the expected results. You need the best performance on the court, or you're not a player of this level", the Italian head coach stated after the game.

At that point, the club decided to go all-in on Toko Shengelia. Scariolo has always been a fan of the player. He suggested his name to the club weeks before the official arrival of the Georgian forward. He was the one who pushed to bring him back to Europe after Shengelia had finished his NBA experience when he was the head coach of Baskonia.

However, Scariolo parted ways with Baskonia before he could work with Shengelia, so now he wanted to have a new chance to have one of his favorite players with him. Shengelia had already decided that he wasn't going back to CSKA Moscow, even if the situation in the country would have settled down a bit.

When he had joined the Russian side back in 2020, he had already received a lot of criticism from the Georgian government, since the relationship between the two countries has always been very tense.

After the start of the war in Ukraine, Shengelia made it clear to his entourage and the club that he was going to Spain with his family and that he had no intention to return to the Russian club anytime soon.

During the interview on Twitch, Scariolo revealed that he asked Hackett to make contacts with Shengelia to start preparing the ground for his potential addition.

Then, Scariolo personally reached out to Shengelia to convince him to join Virtus. The Georgian forward wanted to resume playing as soon as possible but at the same time didn't want to lock down his long-term future in March.

The Italian club was willing to sign him to a multi-year deal, similar to Daniel Hackett's, but Shengelia and his entourage wanted to have freedom at the end of the season to decide what would be the next step.

The Georgian forward and his family are deeply linked to Spain, the player started his basketball career in Valencia and has a house there, and then spent multiple years with Baskonia. If an offer from one of the top teams in Spain will arrive during the summer, Shengelia will definitely take a look at it.

Barcelona are one of the teams interested in his talents, according to multiple sources. Still, despite the rumors of an agreement already in place between the player and the Catalan side, multiple sources have denied to BasketNews that Shengelia has already decided his future.

However, his commitment to Virtus Bologna until the end of the season is not in doubt. The player paid more than 200k to get out of the contract with CSKA Moscow, which would have expired in June of 2023, sources told BasketNews.

Shengelia was enthusiastic about the idea of working with Scariolo and team up again with Hackett.

Shengelia might make his debut in the Bologna's derby against Fortitudo on Sunday, but most likely, we'll see him in his new jersey for the EuroCup game against Cedevita Olimpija Ljubljana.

The additions of Daniel Hackett and Toko Shengelia, two EuroLeague stars, prove once again the relentless ambition of Virtus Bologna and his owner Massimo Zanetti.

Since his arrival into the club as the major owner back in the 2016-2017 season, when Virtus Bologna were playing in the Italian second division, the goal has always been the same: bringing back Virtus Bologna to the splendors of late 90's-early '00s, when the Italian club was among the best in Europe.

In the 2000-01 season, Virtus Bologna with Ettore Messina achieved the Triple Crown, something that no other Italian club did in their history: winning Italian League, Italian Cup, and EuroLeague in the same season.

Many years have passed, coach Messina is now at the helm of rivals AX Armani Exchange Milan, but the drive and the ambition are always the same.

When Daniel Hackett was introduced in a press conference, Virtus Segafredo Bologna CEO Luca Baraldi said, once again, that this club belongs to a certain status that very few clubs in Europe have.

"Daniel could have gone anywhere, but he chose us. Players see us as an important step in their careers. We don't improvise anything, we have a very specific plan that we follow", Baraldi said.

This type of conceit is often typical of Bologna's environment, especially for Virtus. At the end of the day, Bologna is called Basketball city for a reason. In this city, basketball is almost a religion: expectations, overreactions, crazy rumors, and a huge opinion of themselves are elements deeply-rooted in the DNA of the city and the fans.

When Virtus started to lose a few games this season, you can bet that many fans were calling the local radios to ask for the firing of coach Sergio Scariolo.

Over the summer, others were asking, 'Why does Mr. Zanetti not buy Kyle Lowry for us?'

Yes, you got it right. There were fans genuinely asking the club to sign NBA champion Kyle Lowry, the current starting point guard of the Miami Heat, who's making almost $27 million this season.

Others, despite the huge spending summer, complained about the fact that Nico Mannion wasn't the right target and that the team should have kept coach Sasa Djordjevic instead of hiring Scariolo.

The main dream remains EuroLeague. Virtus were close last season, but they got eliminated in the semifinals of EuroCup by UNICS Kazan. However, with the uncertainty surrounding the status of the Russian clubs for next season, inside the Italian club camp, there's a growing feeling that they might receive a wildcard for EuroLeague regardless of their final result in EuroCup, a source told BasketNews.

In this sense, the financial effort made by the ownership, not only during the offseason but also during the season with multiple additions, makes even more sense.

The ownership of Massimo Zanetti has already won a European competition, the Basketball Champions League, in the 2018-2019 season, but they're clearly hungry for more.

It's not surprising. Massimo Zanetti's coffee brand, Segafredo, is one of the most popular and successful in the entire world. The businessman wanted to link his name to one of the most prestigious clubs in the country.

Now it's time for Virtus Bologna to go back to their old self: being part of the European elite, once again.

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