Italian national basketball team head coach Gianmarco Pozzecco has a difficult, nearly impossible task before him. His team is preparing to face Greece in its EuroBasket opener on Thursday, which means he has the unenviable job of figuring out a way to stop the ‘Greek Freak’, Giannis Antetokounmpo.
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That’s easier said than done, as the two-time NBA MVP is just as lethal under FIBA rules as he is when he plays stateside. Greece is favored to beat Italy by 5.5 points according to Bovada and Giannis is the primary reason why.
Back when he was a Sportscenter anchor, Dan Patrick popularized the saying, ‘You can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him’ when talking about a superstar athlete. Pozzecco doesn’t subscribe to that notion, opting instead for more extreme methods of keeping the Greek Freak in check.
Italian forward Nicolo Melli was asked today how the team will try to slow down Giannis, and he deferred by saying, “You’ll have to ask coach, that’s his job. We have to execute his plan.” Pozzecco took the word execute a bit too literally.
“A friend of mine is a sniper,” he said. “We will put him on the top of the gym.” It was obvious that Pozzecco was joking as the assembled reporters laughed and Melli shook his head in a WTF kind of way. It was a bit disconcerting that Pozzecco had obviously given this some thought, though.
“Probably we do this in the first quarter,” he continued. “So he will not play second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter. Friend of mine is a really good sniper. This is the only option that we already got. To stop him is not possible.”
I asked Nicolo Melli how Italy will try to slow down Giannis Antetokounmpo. He said that’s Pozzecco’s job.
Pozzecco’s response: “A friend of mine is a sniper. We will put him on the top, probably in the first quarter”.
Melli was in disbelief: “What kind of friends you have?”. pic.twitter.com/QrrBhHLDgM
— Harris Stavrou (@harris_stavrou) August 27, 2025
Europe is a certainly a unique place, because it’s difficult to imagine an NBA head coach joking like this. Picture Adam Silver’s face if he heard that Ime Udoka was talking about assassinating LeBron James before a key Rockets-Lakers game!
Pozzecco is right to feel helpless against Giannis though, as the Bucks star was a monster in the 2022 EuroBasket event. He averaged 29.3 points, 8.8 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game in leading Greece to the quarterfinals.
Of course, there’s one issue with Pozzecco’s plan. Actually there are many issues … actually there’s just the one, ‘unaliving’ people being illegal in most places. How can he be sure a bullet would even stop Giannis? A bullet would probably only make Giannis mad.
Even more troubling for Pozzecco is that Greece beat Italy 76-74 last week in a warmup game, and they did it while Giannis didn’t even play. Italy was also without Danilo Gallinari, but with all due respect to the veteran stretch 4, being without Giannis is a much bigger loss for Greece. He’ll be playing tomorrow, which is bad news for the Azzurri. Hopefully for Italy’s sake, Pozzecco comes up with a better plan.
