After spending the weekend watching Bolmaro I went back and watched one of my favourite Argentinian players of all time and someone who you’ve probably never heard of unless you lived in South America during the 90s: Marcelo Milanesio.

If you forgive me for my nostalgia-biased take here, Milanesio to me was one of the pioneers of the style of play of many Argentinian PGs of today, which puts a lot of emphasis on being able to see and deliver unorthodox passes off the live dribble.

His team, Atenas de Cordoba, ran the floor frequently and placed a lot of emphasis in beating the other team in transition in a proto-small ball style of play of sorts. Here’s where Milanesio’s ability to make accurate full-court passes came into play.

But Milanesio was also able to make passes in the half-court, like this excellent bounce pass to a cutter.

Or this perfectly placed one-hand pass over the top of the defense.

Besides passing, Milanesio was a really good shooter off the ball with excellent range, retiring as a 43.9% three-point shooter on 4.5 attempts per game through his 18 seasons at the Argentinian LNB.

Some history to end this thread. Clips were taken from Atenas’ win vs French champions Racing in 1997’s McDonalds Open. Atenas finished 3rd after also beating Italian champions Treviso, a performance that helped put Argentinian basketball back in the map.

After receiving offers from European teams in 1998 Milanesio decided to stay with Atenas, retiring in 2002 after 18 seasons, closing one of the most dominating runs in South American basketball, where they won 4 continental titles in a 6-year span + 7 total Argentinian LNB rings.