Pallacanestro Varese is extremely happy to announce the signing of Niccolò Mannion, who will wear the red and white jersey until the end of next season. A player born in 2001, the “Red Mamba” is a talented point guard with strong offensive skills that allow him to be dangerous both as the main end and in favour of his teammates. Nico arrives in Varese after starting the season in the ranks of Baskonia.
Maksim Horowitz, General Manager of Basketball Strategy of Pallacanestro Varese: “Today we welcome Niccolò Mannion, who officially becomes a player of our team. Nico is a young player who brings to our cause a unique combination of dynamism, creativity, skill and basketball intelligence. Being a player of the Italian national team, we know that Nico is happy to return to Italy and play with the Varese jersey, and we are equally happy that he can experience our fans and our city. We are convinced that he will fit in well with the team and our system of play. We believe that Nico can not only improve on our current season, but that he himself can become even stronger. We can’t wait to see him play with us!”
Career
Son of former US basketball player Pace Mannion and Gaia Bianchi, a former Italian volleyball player, Niccolò was born in Siena on 14 March 2001. The family moved to the United States shortly after and so Niccolò began to take his first steps in basketball on US soil. In 2015 he attended the Pinnacle High School team where he put up incredible numbers (more than 30 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists per game average) practically matched in his first and only year of college, spent at the Arizona Wildcats. At the end of the 2019-2020 season, he declared himself eligible for the 2020 NBA Draft, where he was signed by his idol Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors. In the NBA he plays thirty games (career high of 19 points in the 25 March game against Sacramento Kings) before returning to Europe, to Italy, where for two years he plays for Virtus Bologna, winning two Italian Supercup and one EuroCup, and where he has the opportunity to make his Euroleague debut, an experience he continued at the beginning of this season with the Baskonia jersey. Mannion, despite his young age, already has a long militancy in the Italian national team, with which he made his debut at the age of 17 years, 3 months and 17 days (the fourth youngest rookie in the history of the Azzurri). With the Italbasket jersey he has a high of 28 points in last 23 February’s match against Ukraine valid for the World Cup qualification.
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