Olimpia Milano


Pallacanestro Olimpia Milano, commonly known as Olimpia Milano or as AX Armani Exchange Olimpia Milan after its title sponsor, is an LBA Italian professional basketball team, based in Milan, Italy. Its colors are red and white, and the team is sometimes referred as "Scarpette Rosse" because team officials imported red Converse All-Star shoes for players from the United States. The tag line stuck, and the nickname is still used by many fans today.
As per custom in the Italian league, sponsorship has kept the team name changing frequently. From 1930 until 1955, it was called Borletti Milano. From 1956 to 1973, it was renamed Simmenthal. Other famous sponsorship names were Billy, Simac, Tracer, and Philips, in the 1980s. For past club sponsorship names, see [|the list below].
Olimpia is the most titled basketball club in Italy, having won 28 Italian League championships, 6 Italian National Cups, 3 Italian Super Cups, 3 EuroLeague, 1 FIBA Intercontinental Cup, 3 FIBA Saporta Cups, 2 FIBA Korać Cups and many junior titles.

History

1930–1979

Olimpia was founded in 1930, by Milan businessman Adolfo Bogoncelli. The team regularly won the LEGA Basket Serie A championship of Italian basketball in the 1950s and the 1960s, with players including Gabriele Vianello, Sandro Riminucci, Gianfranco Pieri, and Bill Bradley. In the 1970s, three teams were fighting across Europe for supremacy: Olimpia Milano, Ignis Varese, and Real Madrid. Pallacanestro Varese and Olimpia Milano were arch-rivals, as the two cities are 25 miles apart. While Milano was a frequent Italian League champion, they were unable to win the prestigious FIBA European Champions Cup.
Late in the 1970s, the quality of the club declined, but Olimpia Milano still managed to win a FIBA Cup Winners' Cup. In the second half of the 1970s, the team signed several good players, including the Boselli twins, Mike Sylvester, Chas Menatti, Dino Meneghin, Mike D'Antoni, John Gianelli, Roberto Premier. Bob McAdoo, Joe Barry Carroll, Russ Schoene, Antoine Carr, and Mike Brown. American head coach Dan Peterson led the team back to prominence.

1980–2007

In the 1980s, the team was sold to the Gabetti family. During this time, they qualified for nine Serie A championships finals, winning five, with the 1987 team winning the Serie A title, the 1986–87 FIBA European Champions Cup, the Italian Cup and the 1987 FIBA Club World Cup. This gave the club the coveted "Triple Crown" and the even rarer "Quadruple Crown".
Led by point guard Sasha Djordjević, the team won another FIBA Korać Cup in 1993. Bepi Stefanel purchased the team franchise in 1994, and signed-up notable European players like Dejan Bodiroga, Gregor Fučka, Sandro De Pol, and Nando Gentile. In 1996, the team won the Italian Cup and its 25th Italian National Championship, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the club.
Team management was inconsistent, as ownership groups from 1998 to 2004. Players of the team included Warren Kidd, Hugo Sconochini, Claudio Coldebella and Petar Naumoski. In 2005, owner Corbelli, which bought the club in 2002, from Sergio Tacchini, was flanked by Adriano Galliani, Massimo Moratti, NBA star Kobe Bryant, and stylist Giorgio Armani, as sponsor with the Armani Jeans brand. After difficult years, led by coach Lino Lardo, Olimpia reached the national championship Finals, finally being beaten by Climamio Bologna.
On January 25, 2006, in the midst of a disappointing season in the EuroLeague and domestically, Djordjevic was named as the team's new coach. He left as coach after the 2006–07 season, but not before securing Olimpia a berth in the 2007–08 Euroleague.

2008–present

In 2008, Giorgio Armani bought the team from Giorgio Corbelli, standing as the only owner, entirely changing the management structure, naming Livio Proli as President, and Lucio Zanca as general manager. Piero Bucchi was chosen to coach the new team, leading Olimpia twice to second place in LEGA Basket, being defeated by Montepaschi Siena in both cases.
On January 2011, after 23 years, glorious coach Dan Peterson came back from retirement to replace Piero Bucchi as head coach. However, his stint at Olimpia Milano this time was quite short: after failing to reach the championship Finals, on June 9, Olimpia Milano announced Sergio Scariolo as new head coach for the 2011–12 season. The first player signed for the 2011–12 season was Omar Cook, an American-born play maker, who had played the previous season with Power Electronics Valencia. Due to the NBA lockout, Danilo Gallinari went back to his Alma Mater, playing 15 games : he left the team in December.
Sergio Scariolo was replaced by Luca Banchi at the beginning of the 2013–14 season, and the team brought from Montepaschi Siena: David Moss, Kristjan Kangur, and Daniel Hackett.
The team reached the quarterfinals of EuroLeague, 16 years after its last appearance, but the team lost against the eventual league champions, Maccabi Electra. The team finished in the 1st position the LEGA Basket regular season, and in the 7th game of the playoff's finals, Olimpia won its 26th Italian League championship title, its first after 18 years. Alessandro Gentile, the captain of Olimpia, was named MVP of the finals.
On 29th of June 2017 Simone Pianigiani was hired as the new head coach and in June 15, 2018, Milano went to win his 28th title by beating Dolomiti Energia Trento in game 6 of the 2018 LBA Finals.
In June 11, 2019, legend Ettore Messina signed a deal as the new head coach of the club and president of all basketball operations for the following three seasons.

Logos

Arenas

Olimpia Milano used the OND Borletti outdoor court for almost 20 years in Via Costanza. In the mid-1940s, they moved to the PalaFiera Milano, which had a seating capacity of 18,000 people, and was then the largest indoor sports arena in Europe, and second only to the Madison Square Garden in New York City. At the end of the 1960s, the PalaFiera was abandoned, and Olimpia moved into the original structure of the PalaLido, which then had a smaller seating capacity of 3,500, but because of lack of security measures at the time, often was filled with up to 10,000 people.
At the end of the 1970s, Olympia moved into the newly built Palasport di San Siro, a multi-purpose facility built next to the Meazza Stadium, that was able to hold about 18,000 spectators. In 1985, Olimpia returned to PalaLido. They then moved to the 8,500 seat PalaTrussardi, where they played through the early 1990s.
The club then moved into its current home arena, the Mediolanum Forum, which has a seating capacity of 12,700. The club has also played some home games at the 6,700 seat PalaDesio. Recently, the club considered moving back to the newly rebuilt and modernized PalaLido, after it was remodeled, and had its seating capacity expanded. However, the club ultimately decided to continue using the Mediolanum Forum as its home arena, due to its much larger seating capacity, as compared to PalaLido.

Honours

Domestic competitions

Current roster

Depth chart

Retired numbers

Season by season

Top performances in European & Worldwide competitions

Matches against NBA teams

Sponsorship names

Through the years, due to sponsorship deals, it has been also known as: