jerseyshorejohnny
Well-known member
The Coach Who Changed the NBA From Italy
He played an influential role in the evolution of basketball. But there’s a reason you’ve never heard of Dan Peterson. The American has been in Europe for nearly five decades.
By Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal
Nov. 14, 2018
Milan
Dan Peterson, a short, white-haired, 82-year-old man who looked perfectly Italian in a puffy vest over a sharp gray suit, took his courtside seat before a recent Olimpia Milano basketball game.
“Buonasera, coach!” his fans said.
They wanted handshakes. They wanted selfies. They wanted to say they had met Dan Peterson.
Peterson is one of the most overlooked, influential figures in the history of the sport because he didn’t play or coach in the NBA. He’s been overseas for almost his entire career. He also happens to be from the Chicago suburbs.
The reason that Peterson is a celebrity abroad but almost entirely unknown in the United States is that he moved to Italy about 45 years ago and never left.
“He is the patriarch of bringing together American and European basketball,” said Miami Heat president Pat Riley.
There have been two major stylistic innovations to disrupt the NBA in recent years: playing faster and shooting more 3-pointers. Mike D’Antoni was on front lines of both revolutions. His Phoenix Suns pushed the tempo and forced the league to catch them, and his Houston Rockets have broken their own shooting records for each of the last three years.
But if you went searching for where D’Antoni cultivated his funny ideas about basketball, you might start with his formative years in Milan, which is still the home of his mentor: Dan Peterson.
The American who made the NBA more European was on a traditional coaching path until it twisted and turned and took him across the ocean.
He was born and raised in Evanston, Ill. He went to Northwestern. He was an assistant coach in his 20s and the head coach of Delaware when he was 30. And then he took a job with the Peace Corps in Chile, moved to a house seven blocks from Salvador Allende and coached the national basketball team.
“We had a villa and a maid,” Peterson said. “We didn’t have that in Delaware.”
But he also didn’t have to worry about a coup in Delaware. Peterson decided it was time to leave Chile during the country’s political unrest in 1973 and went to college basketball’s Final Four looking for work. That’s where he bumped into the future Hall of Fame coach Chuck Daly.
“Would you be interested in coaching in Europe?” Daly asked.
Daly’s top assistant at the University of Pennsylvania had an offer in Bologna, Italy. But that coach was Rollie Massimino, and he was about to be hired by Villanova instead. Bologna had already promised its fans an American coach, and now there was only one man for the job. “I was speaking Italian in three days,” Peterson said.
He was poached in 1978 by the Italian powerhouse Olimpia Milano, and Peterson’s star player was suddenly a guy from West Virginia with a fantastic mustache. His name was Mike D’Antoni.
Peterson was intrigued by D’Antoni when he coached against him the year before. It turned out they had slightly different opinions of each other.
“He was the greatest point guard, and not just by a little bit,” Peterson said. “By kilometers.”
“I didn’t know him from Adam,” D’Antoni said.
He got to know him as they spent the next decade far away from the NBA peering into the future of basketball.
Peterson empowered D’Antoni. D’Antoni had lost faith in his own ability, and Peterson might as well have spiked his latte with confidence. “He let me be myself,” D’Antoni said. He encouraged him to launch at least 12 shots per game and promised he wouldn’t chide him if he missed all 12. “But if you take 11 and make 10,” Peterson said, “we’re gonna talk.”
While the rest of the world was bogged down by the inertia of how things had always been done, this one Italian team embraced the power of the 3-pointer. Peterson made D’Antoni take advantage of the 3-point line when it migrated to Europe in 1984. He ordered him to shoot whenever he was open.
“The NBA was asleep,” Peterson said. “Now that’s all they do.”
Olimpia Milano played fast in addition to shooting 3-pointers. Peterson stole plays from the Showtime Lakers and compensated for not having Pat Riley’s personnel by demanding that all of his players sprint as soon as they had possession.
“That’s a fast break,” he said. “I don’t care if you’re slow.”
And he expected everyone to shoot. Even the players who were never expected to shoot.
When he began recruiting Bob McAdoo on a hunch that his game would translate overseas, the former MVP was confused. “I didn’t know who the heck he was,” McAdoo said. He found out by playing for him. “Dan is a legend,” he said. McAdoo later hosted Peterson’s wedding in his Miami home. He was also the best man.
It was around this time that something fascinating happened in basketball. NBA coaches became open to cribbing the best ideas of the most creative European minds.
Peterson was their conduit. He invited them to summer clinics in Salsomaggiore, and Pat Riley was among the coaches who made a habit of attending. He shopped at Missoni and bought suits from Giorgio Armani himself. But that’s not why he went.
“We used to hunker down at the hotel, eat pasta and teach basketball,” Riley said. “And then at night have dinner with Dan and talk more basketball.”
The sport’s globalization since then made it easier for someone like D’Antoni to bring Europe to the U.S. After winning Euroleague titles in 1987 and 1988, D’Antoni became the Olimpia Milano coach, the beginning of a career that eventually took him back to the NBA.
Peterson made a move of his own. He retired.
“He quit way too early,” D’Antoni said.
Peterson says retiring on top in 1987 was a mistake. He wasn’t done with the game. He was simply burnt out. “If I’d just taken a month of vacation,” he sighed. Peterson returned as the team’s interim coach in 2011 but otherwise hasn’t coached in more than 30 years. Everyone calls him “The Coach” anyway.
The Coach stayed in Milan even after he was done coaching. He still lives here with his wife and three cats. Like any good coach, he became a commentator. Peterson wrote columns for La Gazzetta dello Sport and called games on Italian television. That he took his catchphrase (“Mamma, butta la pasta!”) from the Chicago White Sox play-by-play man Bob Elson (“Mama, put the coffee on the stove!”) was oddly fitting of someone whose career dragged two continents closer together.
Olimpia Milano’s game was about to start. The fans packed into this arena that offered a spectacular variety of boxed pasta. Peterson made his way back to the court and walked past a framed old photo of a coach.
“That’s me over there,” he said, “when I was acting like an idiot.”
He was surrounded by people for the rest of the night and shielded by friends and trailed by acolytes when he finally left.
“Coach!”
“Coach!”
“Hey, Coach!”
“Ciao,” Peterson said.
Write to Ben Cohen at ben.cohen@wsj.com
He played an influential role in the evolution of basketball. But there’s a reason you’ve never heard of Dan Peterson. The American has been in Europe for nearly five decades.
By Ben Cohen / Wall Street Journal
Nov. 14, 2018
Milan
Dan Peterson, a short, white-haired, 82-year-old man who looked perfectly Italian in a puffy vest over a sharp gray suit, took his courtside seat before a recent Olimpia Milano basketball game.
“Buonasera, coach!” his fans said.
They wanted handshakes. They wanted selfies. They wanted to say they had met Dan Peterson.
Peterson is one of the most overlooked, influential figures in the history of the sport because he didn’t play or coach in the NBA. He’s been overseas for almost his entire career. He also happens to be from the Chicago suburbs.
The reason that Peterson is a celebrity abroad but almost entirely unknown in the United States is that he moved to Italy about 45 years ago and never left.
“He is the patriarch of bringing together American and European basketball,” said Miami Heat president Pat Riley.
There have been two major stylistic innovations to disrupt the NBA in recent years: playing faster and shooting more 3-pointers. Mike D’Antoni was on front lines of both revolutions. His Phoenix Suns pushed the tempo and forced the league to catch them, and his Houston Rockets have broken their own shooting records for each of the last three years.
But if you went searching for where D’Antoni cultivated his funny ideas about basketball, you might start with his formative years in Milan, which is still the home of his mentor: Dan Peterson.
The American who made the NBA more European was on a traditional coaching path until it twisted and turned and took him across the ocean.
He was born and raised in Evanston, Ill. He went to Northwestern. He was an assistant coach in his 20s and the head coach of Delaware when he was 30. And then he took a job with the Peace Corps in Chile, moved to a house seven blocks from Salvador Allende and coached the national basketball team.
“We had a villa and a maid,” Peterson said. “We didn’t have that in Delaware.”
But he also didn’t have to worry about a coup in Delaware. Peterson decided it was time to leave Chile during the country’s political unrest in 1973 and went to college basketball’s Final Four looking for work. That’s where he bumped into the future Hall of Fame coach Chuck Daly.
“Would you be interested in coaching in Europe?” Daly asked.
Daly’s top assistant at the University of Pennsylvania had an offer in Bologna, Italy. But that coach was Rollie Massimino, and he was about to be hired by Villanova instead. Bologna had already promised its fans an American coach, and now there was only one man for the job. “I was speaking Italian in three days,” Peterson said.
He was poached in 1978 by the Italian powerhouse Olimpia Milano, and Peterson’s star player was suddenly a guy from West Virginia with a fantastic mustache. His name was Mike D’Antoni.
Peterson was intrigued by D’Antoni when he coached against him the year before. It turned out they had slightly different opinions of each other.
“He was the greatest point guard, and not just by a little bit,” Peterson said. “By kilometers.”
“I didn’t know him from Adam,” D’Antoni said.
He got to know him as they spent the next decade far away from the NBA peering into the future of basketball.
Peterson empowered D’Antoni. D’Antoni had lost faith in his own ability, and Peterson might as well have spiked his latte with confidence. “He let me be myself,” D’Antoni said. He encouraged him to launch at least 12 shots per game and promised he wouldn’t chide him if he missed all 12. “But if you take 11 and make 10,” Peterson said, “we’re gonna talk.”
While the rest of the world was bogged down by the inertia of how things had always been done, this one Italian team embraced the power of the 3-pointer. Peterson made D’Antoni take advantage of the 3-point line when it migrated to Europe in 1984. He ordered him to shoot whenever he was open.
“The NBA was asleep,” Peterson said. “Now that’s all they do.”
Olimpia Milano played fast in addition to shooting 3-pointers. Peterson stole plays from the Showtime Lakers and compensated for not having Pat Riley’s personnel by demanding that all of his players sprint as soon as they had possession.
“That’s a fast break,” he said. “I don’t care if you’re slow.”
And he expected everyone to shoot. Even the players who were never expected to shoot.
When he began recruiting Bob McAdoo on a hunch that his game would translate overseas, the former MVP was confused. “I didn’t know who the heck he was,” McAdoo said. He found out by playing for him. “Dan is a legend,” he said. McAdoo later hosted Peterson’s wedding in his Miami home. He was also the best man.
It was around this time that something fascinating happened in basketball. NBA coaches became open to cribbing the best ideas of the most creative European minds.
Peterson was their conduit. He invited them to summer clinics in Salsomaggiore, and Pat Riley was among the coaches who made a habit of attending. He shopped at Missoni and bought suits from Giorgio Armani himself. But that’s not why he went.
“We used to hunker down at the hotel, eat pasta and teach basketball,” Riley said. “And then at night have dinner with Dan and talk more basketball.”
The sport’s globalization since then made it easier for someone like D’Antoni to bring Europe to the U.S. After winning Euroleague titles in 1987 and 1988, D’Antoni became the Olimpia Milano coach, the beginning of a career that eventually took him back to the NBA.
Peterson made a move of his own. He retired.
“He quit way too early,” D’Antoni said.
Peterson says retiring on top in 1987 was a mistake. He wasn’t done with the game. He was simply burnt out. “If I’d just taken a month of vacation,” he sighed. Peterson returned as the team’s interim coach in 2011 but otherwise hasn’t coached in more than 30 years. Everyone calls him “The Coach” anyway.
The Coach stayed in Milan even after he was done coaching. He still lives here with his wife and three cats. Like any good coach, he became a commentator. Peterson wrote columns for La Gazzetta dello Sport and called games on Italian television. That he took his catchphrase (“Mamma, butta la pasta!”) from the Chicago White Sox play-by-play man Bob Elson (“Mama, put the coffee on the stove!”) was oddly fitting of someone whose career dragged two continents closer together.
Olimpia Milano’s game was about to start. The fans packed into this arena that offered a spectacular variety of boxed pasta. Peterson made his way back to the court and walked past a framed old photo of a coach.
“That’s me over there,” he said, “when I was acting like an idiot.”
He was surrounded by people for the rest of the night and shielded by friends and trailed by acolytes when he finally left.
“Coach!”
“Coach!”
“Hey, Coach!”
“Ciao,” Peterson said.
Write to Ben Cohen at ben.cohen@wsj.com
