Maurizio Gherardini
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Maurizio 'Mo' Gherardini (born September 22, 1955) is an Italian sportsman, currently vice president and an assistant general manager for the Toronto Raptors NBA club.
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[edit] Gherardini changes basketball
Gherardini is a former banker who forever changed basketball throughout Europe. When he was in St. Louis as an exchange student, he saw a vision of how a great basketball team should be handled. When he returned to his native country of Italy, Gherardini began translating important books about the game of basketball into Italian and distributed them out to basketball coaches around the country.
That’s not all Maurizio did though. He began the organization of basketball camps as well as clinics and also prepared the first ever coaches clinic in Europe. That coaches clinic brought such NBA legends as Detlef Schrempf, Bob McAdoo, Hubie Brown and Bill Walton to Italy.
[edit] Maurizio Gherardini's basketball career
Maurizio Gherardini started his basketball career as a player playing on his hometown team of Forlì from 1971 to 1975. From there he went on to become an assistant coach for Forlì and was also a director of youth teams for the club. He held those roles from 1975-1982 when he was then promoted to be the teams general manager in 1983. Forlì was playing in the top league (Serie A) when Gherardini took over as GM.
After nine years at the helm of Forlì, Gherardini left the team in 1992 to take over the most popular basketball job in all of Europe. He was hired as the general manager of Benetton Treviso in 1992 and since than has molded that squad into one of the most familiar basketball clubs outside of the NBA.
Under the watchful eye of Gherardini, Benetton soared to four league championships (1997, 2002, 2003 and 2006), three Italian supercups (1997, 2001 and 2002), made four appearances in the Euroleague's final four (1993, 1998, 2002, and 2003), and helped them capture seven Italian Cups (1993-1995, 2000, 2003-2005).
Maurizio Gherardini has also developed the most sophisticated scouting system in the entire Euroleague. Not to mention he’s done it while being in control of one of the top basketball teams in all of Europe. In fact Gherardini is so respected that NBA teams ask for his advice when it comes to selecting players out of Europe.
[edit] Interviewed by Charlotte
In 2003 Maurizio Gherardini was interviewed for the Charlotte Bobcats general manager position. It was the first time in the history of the National Basketball Association that a non-American citizen has been interviewed for a top job on an NBA team. Although he was seriously considered for the job the Bobcats hired Bernie Bickerstaff instead.
Former NBA basketball player and general manager Kiki Vandeweghe said that Maurizio Gherardini is one of the best general managers in the world and said that there is no doubt that Gherardini would make a great GM in the NBA.
[edit] Hired by Toronto
On June 22, 2006 Maurizio Gherardini was hired by the Toronto Raptors as vice president and assistant general manager to Raptors president and GM Bryan Colangelo.
