The Sound of Philly

Most of the NBA fans I’ve met overseas tend to be Lakers or Celtics fans, as those are the franchises that garner the most international press.  I’ve got to give it to Ricky, one of the guys who runs the Milan, Italy-based website Sixers4Guidos.  He latched onto the Sixers in the ’80s and like any true fan, has held on tightly since then, through some great years and some very lean years.

Being intrigued by his situation and wanted to know what it was like for a Sixers fan in Italy, I asked him to answer a few questions and he was glad to oblige.

TSOP: You live in Milan, but you’re a 76ers fan. When and why did you start following the Sixers?

Ricky: I am 38 years old now and started following the Sixers in the ’80s when Italian TV started broadcasting the NBA (once a week, Sunday morning at around 10). At that time they were basically showing only Celtics vs. Lakers and Sixers and I fell in love with the red uniforms and Dr. J. I’ve never stopped.

TSOP: How do you keep up with all of the games living overseas? Do they ever show American basketball on Italian TV?

Ricky: It’s tough, especially if you have a “normal” office job like mine. Now the coverage in Italy is extensive, you basically have two cable channels airing the NBA. Sky, that I think has three to four games a week, and SportItalia, that shows one game per night. But I have neither of them, since I signed up for International League Pass broadband and watch the Sixers there – despite some common “technical problems”.

From Monday to Friday is nearly impossible for me to catch the Sixers live: games starting at 7 PM eastern time mean that here is 1 AM, which would mean going to bed at around 3.30 AM. And that’s just to watch them, excluding the blog post. If you have to get up at 8 AM, and work for 9-10 hours, it’s tough.

So I watch the Sixers live only occasionally, mainly the big games (season opener, playoffs, Lakers, Celtics, etc.), and on the weekends. The rest of the times I watch games replayed on League Pass when I get home after work. It’s not easy, especially if you also blog the team, the time zone difference doesn’t help much.
Other tough parts are: a) carefully avoiding the score before watching the game and b) keeping up with wifey!!!

TSOP: Tell me about your website, Sixers4Guidos. Why did you start, and what’s its scope?

Ricky: It’s started for fun, of course, in September 2006, on a free blogging platform. That year the NBA wasn’t offering League Pass to international users yet, so I was watching Sixers on peer-to-peer channels, with low quality, Chinese, Russian, or Turkish commentators. My site progressively grew in traffic and posts, and comments were increasing, so what was originally a hobby became more serious, to the point that I even received some ad proposals, which I initially thought were spam.

On October 2009 I joined the Bloguin network of bloggers and the crew there helped me building Sixer4guidos 2.0, the current site.

TSOP: Who are some of your favorite players, both Sixers and players on other teams?

Ricky: Many of them. I love everything about the “old school Sixers,” so I remember Dr. J, Cheeks, Toney, and all members of that fantastic squad. I used to like Barkley a lot and I am a huge Iverson fan (but I was ok when we traded him, since his days as a Sixers were over). I also have a passion for Manute Bol and all Sixers scrubs/end of the bench players. I love thinking about them all, from good old Scott Brooks, Don MacLean, Tim Perry, and Kurt Nimphius, to the latest ones like Calvin Booth, Amal McCaskill, and Efthimios Rentzias. It’s fun.

TSOP: What are three things that the Sixers need to do to field a competitive team?

Ricky: 1) Get SHOOTERS!

2) Do NOT trade the young players, keep this core and let it grow, see what happens in 2-3 years.

3) Do not screw up the signings in the summer of 2011, when we’ll have $23 million coming off the books (Dalembert, Green and Kapono expiring). I think 2012 could be the year for being competitive in the playoffs, perhaps getting to the Conference Finals, or even the Finals.

TSOP: Tell me about some of the differences between Italian basketball and the NBA?

Ricky: Unfortunately I don’t follow the Italian league that much for the reasons listed above. In a nutshell, I spend enough time watching and blogging the Sixers. Also our league is “Italian” only on paper, because with the new international rules you have many rosters without a single Italian player. It’s difficult to be passionate about those teams.

In general, it could be said that our defense is tougher, as they play “controlled” basketball. It’s very physical and not exactly fun to watch, especially when you have games finishing 65-62 or something like that. On the bright side, players here have better fundamentals and they can usually hit open jumpers.

I think Italian league was way better 8-10 years ago. Guys like Kukoc, Ginobili, Delfino, Udrih, and Nesterovic played here and were also good in the NBA. Now, Jennings + the three Guidos (Bargnani, Belinelli, Gallinari), of course.

In the ’80s, former NBA stars were crossing the ocean to end their careers here (McAdoo, Dantley, Gervin, Darryl Dawkins, and Dominique Wilkins), but now we also have young guys doing the opposite trip. The gap is definitely smaller.