Dinamo Banco di Sardegna enters the week leading up to their Serie A2 opener, scheduled for Sunday, September 27 on Urania Milano's court. The Sassari team approaches the first round of the championship after a pre-season made difficult by physical issues, which affected the daily work of tactical integration for a deeply renovated roster.
Injury update and playmaking situation
Weighing heavily on the start of the season is an outright emergency in the backcourt. Recovery times will not be short following the severe injury suffered by Kaza Kajami-Keane, the Canadian pillar of the biancoblù backcourt. In his place, the club stepped in by signing Brandon Young on a short-term contract, who showed improving rhythm in the recent friendly against Esperia Cagliari, although he still needs time to develop full chemistry with his teammates. Also remaining sidelined are combo guard Riccardo Pisano, out since the early stages of pre-season, Michele Vitali, engaged in his rehabilitation program following the trauma to his right hand on September 10 against Brindisi, and Alessandro Grande, stopped by a contusion picked up in practice. The bright note of the scrimmage with Esperia was the return of Estonia's Joonas Riismaa, who was immediately impactful both defensively and from beyond the arc.
Luca Vitali's confidence in the team's journey
Despite the setbacks in organizing on-court work, coach Luca Vitali maintains a confident attitude, pointing out that the season will be a marathon and that the team's commitment remains encouraging: "It's definitely better for certain things to happen now rather than later, but I'm very pleased with the dedication everyone is putting into practice".
According to the head coach, the pre-season friendlies played shorthanded highlighted room for improvement both technically and physically: "This is a team with great potential, both physically and technically, and one that rightly needs time, having 10 new players, in order to grow and find the right chemistry, something it is pursuing day after day". The coach then emphasized the value of shared experience in overcoming tough stretches: "We can't buy this at the supermarket, but we can experience and train it on a daily basis".
Looking at the broader Serie A2 landscape, the first federation rulings and transfer moves have also been reported. The FIP federal council handed down a two-point deduction to Basket Mestre due to a 24-hour delay in paying a 3,000-euro F24 tax form, resulting from an internal procedural error. Regarding players with a past on the island, Ariel Filloy reached an agreement with Pistoia for the third time in his career, while Matteo Tambone was chosen as the new team captain of Victoria Libertas Pesaro.