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He ultimately played in 201 games in the Italian League. “Bob McAdoo is Bob McAdoo,” Della Noce says now with a modest shrug.īut McAdoo treated the entire continent that way, leading Milan to two straight European Champions Cup titles. Della Noce reached in vain, and was generally rewarded by the brush of the Hall of Famer’s fingertips on his face. McAdoo then started shooting, without much resistance. “He threw the ball in my stomach,” Della Noce said of McAdoo’s way of saying that he wanted a sparring partner.ĭella Noce started with the ball, and remembers having every shot blocked by McAdoo as if he were picking apples from a low tree. He was a 6-foot-6 shooter and strong defender, though neither was probably on McAdoo’s mind when the star picked up a ball and walked towards the kid.

The future coach became close with another teammate - a strong, tough-defending forward named Vittorio Gallinari.Īn 18-year-old Della Noce was in his final year in the academy, and as a perk got to practice against players on the parent club. The team included Dino Meneghin, the center still considered Italy’s greatest player, and Mike D’Antoni, known to the crowd as Il Baffo - The Mustache. The great shooter had won his second title with the Lakers two years earlier, and still had enough left to set the Euroleague on fire. He was 18 when, in 1987, Olimpia Milan signed Bob McAdoo. As a young player who started in the same Olimpia Milan academy system that many years later produced Gallinari, Della Noce loved Julius Erving and Magic Johnson. Mallamaci and Bomba then turn the laughter on Della Noce when he admits that he was a Sixers and Lakers fan before coming over to the Celtics. Mallamaci and Della Noce are AC Milan season ticket holders, and on this particular day are giving Bomba a hard time over his Inter allegiance during a Zoom conference with the Herald. The color of greenĪ walk along the top of Milan’s majestic and towering Duomo on the day of the Derby Della Madonnina - the annual soccer clash between the city’s two legendary clubs - reveals a gathering quilt of Inter blue/white and AC red/white spread over the piazzas below by T-shirts and banners.

For all concerned, there’s something very complete about Gallinari’s latest move.