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Basketball, the Blair “clan” to conquer America

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Friday’s Summer League in Las Vegas could have been a bit of a Biella match. But Sandro Mamukelashvili’s Milwaukee Bucks (8.3 points and 8.6 rebounds on average in the first three outings) did not face Joseph Blair on the bench of the Minnesota Timberwolves. The former Biella basketball center of the nineties had been appointed head coach for the summer league, but has received and accepted in recent days the indispensable offer of the Washington Wizards: he will remain in the NBA with an important role in the staff of the capital’s team , the third in his career on the professional bench after his Philadelphia debut and the second season in Minnesota. In the meantime, the “Blair Mafia”, as dad Joseph jokingly calls on Instagram the family business, can also celebrate Joseph junior’s second year overseas: the class of 2000 who grew up in the nursery of Pallacanestro Biella, the city where he was born and raised, he joined the squad of the University of Des Moines, multiple winner of the Iowa community college championship, one of the local leagues reserved for university sports programs. Already last year the young Blair, fresh from his first season in the A2 series rotations under the orders of Paolo Galbiati, had tried the American adventure, inserted in the basketball team of the Central Pointe school-academy in Florida. Enthusiastic about the welcome that his new university gave him on Twitter: «A shooter who knows how to hit from three, with the characteristics of a guard who grew up in Europe and able to defend in multiple positions. With him the team adds depth to the perimeter ». The announcement is dated August 9th. Two days later came that of his father’s passage from the Timberwolves to the Wizards: “God continues to move me, my career and my life in new and wonderful directions. I am excited for this opportunity and thrilled to become part of the Washington organization, ”was his very first comment via social media. Blair was in Las Vegas: Appointed assistant coach with the role of defensive specialist in Minnesota, he was leading the team to the Summer League, a task left unfinished to embrace the new adventure. «Knowing him as a young man, I would have bet on his career as a coach», said his friend Nicola Minessi, companion in the first Biella of A2. In the curriculum of the former rossoblù number 15, in addition to the two seasons already lived in the NBA, there is the D-League title won with the Rio Grande Vipers, the Houston Rockets b-team, in 2019. The crossing with Mamukelashvili , with whom Blair shares the experience with the coach-teacher Federico Danna, could only be postponed for a few weeks, when the real NBA begins.

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