Ettore Messina (born September 30, 1959 in Catania, Italy) is an Italian professional basketball coach currently working as a consultant for Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association. He has won 4 Euroleague championships as a head coach. Messina is regarded as one of the best European basketball coaches, having been named in 2008, one of the Euroleague's 10 Greatest All-Time Coaches. Furthermore, he twice won the Euroleague Coach of the Year award, in 2006 and 2008.
[edit] Coaching career
[edit] Professional clubs
Messina had two different stints (1989–1993 and 1997–2002) at the Italian League club, Virtus Bologna. During his second stint at Virtus, he coached the team to Euroleague trophies in both the 1997-98 and 2000-01 seasons. He then served as the head coach of the Italian League club Benetton Treviso, where he succeeded Mike D'Antoni as head coach in 2002.
Messina joined CSKA Moscow in 2005, and he led the team to the Euroleague 2005-06 season title and the coveted Triple Crown in his first season there. On May 4, 2008, CSKA won the Euroleague championship again under Messina - the club gained its sixth Euroleague title by downing Maccabi Tel Aviv at the 2007-08 Madrid Euroleague Final Four. He resigned from CSKA immediately after leading them to a Russian SuperLeague title and a Euroleague runner-up finish during the 2008-09 season. He was offered a position as the technical director at CSKA, but at the time of his resignation, he had not decided whether or not he wanted to stay with the club.[1]
He was announced as the new head coach of the Spanish League club Real Madrid on June 18, 2009,[2] and signed his contract the following day. After Real Madrid suffered several poor performances, Messina resigned as their head coach in March 2011.
[edit] National Basketball Association
Messina was frequently the subject of speculation linking him with vacant coaching jobs in the NBA. For example, he was one of the many coaches in the discussion for the Sacramento Kings head coaching role, and it was also rumored that he would join the Toronto Raptors and San Antonio Spurs coaching staffs. Finally, Messina agreed to join the Los Angeles Lakers as part of Head Coach Mike Brown's coaching staff, to serve as a consultant to the head coach, in a full-time position.[3]
[edit] Italian national team
From 1993 to 1997, Messina was the head coach of the senior men's Italian national basketball team. He led Italy to the silver medal at the EuroBasket 1997.
[edit] Notes and references
[edit] External links
| Persondata |
| Name |
Messina, Ettore |
| Alternative names |
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| Short description |
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| Date of birth |
1959-09-30 |
| Place of birth |
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| Date of death |
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| Place of death |
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Dušan Ivković
Pini Gershon
Željko Obradović
Jonas Kazlauskas
