These pages are a gesture of listening. An act of gratitude toward all those voices who, in silence, keep playing, resisting, existing. This book is an invitation to bring wisdom into the world - the kind of wisdom that listens, that sees, that knows how to break free from the fences of the mind. It speaks of the real world, the one we so often fail to notice, or choose not to see, because it lies too far from what we’ve been taught to accept as real. But none of these words, none of these insights, originate from me. Wisdom has always been here. Woven into the silent gestures and forgotten faces of countless generations - passed down, practiced, whispered, and lived by sages, both great and small. Many of them walk beside us, invisible, unheard, muted by our prejudice, blurred by the noise of the modern world. I see luminous souls moving quietly among the crowd with the grace of the ordinary. They themselves do not know how extraordinary they are. No, I do not possess wisdom. I have only tried to translate it into words simple enough for me to understand. I am merely a vessel, an interpreter for the wise. In truth, they are the real authors of this book - I am only the one who presses the keys, who prints the images, who attempts to give shape to what has always existed.
-I would like to thank the co-authors of this book - Fabio La Rosa, Riccardo Sironi, Walter Ferraioli - for their invaluable contributions and for the deep passion they bring to basketball and the street courts.
- My heartfelt thanks go to all the boys from street basketball courts I met during my travels across different countries, who gave me not only their interviews and thoughts, but above all precious fragments of their souls - intimate and authentic expressions that I have had the honor to preserve and share within the pages of this book - you were there, even in silence.
- Thank you to Gus Andy, whose eye turned fleeting moments into lasting echoes. Your photographs gave form to the invisible.
- I am also deeply grateful to all the ‘great’ coaches I have encountered along my path, from whom I have learned not only technical knowledge, but also spiritual understanding - practices of meditation, breathing, and inner stillness.
- Last but not least, I am thankful to the friends who took the time to read through my early drafts in their entirety and offered many useful suggestions, including ...
To all of them - and to those unnamed voices, gestures, and presences that silently shaped this journey - my heartfelt thanks.This book exists because of you. It carries many hands and hearts.

As the basketball undergoes irreversible change due to the exaltation of ego, owing to the crisis of identity and humanity, I have made it my mission to tell ‘urgent’ stories about Sports. I blend ‘basketball court’ storytelling and a sublime photos aesthetic to give to the reader a sense of what it means to live through this moment in time. I want to bring people closer to feeling the soul of the environment, rather than just looking at it. Collaboration is central. Every ‘word’ is explored through the ‘isolated lives’ of the protagonists. I consider this synergistic exchange spiritual giving something to receive. Having someone’s life story revealed to you is such a gift. I believe one have to work hard for this. You must sit with them, commit to them, experience all their emotions and grief. It’s not just people, the soul is deeply entangled with the environment.
People understand the issues with their minds, with intellect, but engaging their inner self, getting them to understand with their heart is much more complex. We are all part of this circle of life, and I want to find a visual language that brings people closer to feeling the soul of the environment rather than just looking at it. I understand that the act of conversing is about much more than the words we speak. A different tongue can imbue alternate meanings, gestures, cultural codes and even influence one’s personality. I feel like a completely different person when I speak a different language, and Street Basketball is a language in itself. It is a means of communication. This book is about awareness and spirituality, the ability to communicate, negotiate, problem solve, and descalate potential conflict, is about the meaning of a moment of the life. Reading it, you will learn what you need to keep, what you need to discard, and what you need to add to your mental, emotional, and ‘spiritual’ skill set as a human being. You will discover how people from all parts of the world have brought together the asphalt, and ‘athletics’ efforts.
I will demonstrate how certain timeless values will inspire you to embrace and navigate the unchartered waters of listening, of the ability to listen to the sound of the soul. ‘Basketball Reawakening’ is a book about truth, that is, it is about the way things are meant to be as opposed to the way we think they should be. This book will be your guide to understand the meaning of the Street Basketball. To win from within as you mind the heart and mend the mind. I don’t intend to tell you what to believe in. I do hope to show what to think, or perhaps, what not to think. The act of coaching guys is both a science and an art. The science of coaching is the possession of a deep well of knowledge about the theories, techniques, rules, and intricacies of the sport. The art, which is perhaps more difficult, lies in the knowledge that a coach has about the athletes, how to motivate them, how to discipline them, how to inspire them to greater performance, and how to use the sport as an educational tool that will help them to a successful life after competition on the playing fields ceases.

I remember my first moment on the USA basketball courts: the feeling of awe I experienced then was indescribable. I found myself in a new world, almost alien, yet it made me appreciate even the small things in everyday life. I met people I probably never would have known. I lived endless days rich with experiences. It was there I understood how life takes shape based on how you look at it. I met people with incredible stories who made me realize how often our limits are just self-imposed because we know nothing else or don't give ourselves the opportunity to discover more. Ultimately, what seems impossible is only what we haven't truly tried yet.
I was looking for adventure, radical change, and the challenge of adapting to a completely different environment, but the challenge wasn't just adapting; it was also about being accepted and becoming part of such an exceptional place. 'Basketball' in Italy has written and unwritten rules, conventions, and practices held 'in being' by people, 'laws, rules of the game, and a governing body.' I felt I had to 'paint between the lines' to change things, to celebrate basketball and bring it out of the shadow of 'conventional duty.' But I was worried about what other coaches and trainers would think if I went against the established way of doing things. So I moved to the margins of conventional basketball. Sometimes, to stay true to yourself, you have to choose to be on the sidelines.
I started working in action and adventure basketball, a frontier where it seemed the rules were still being written. I'm not running from something; rather, I'm searching for something. I'm always looking for new experiences. The world is too big to always stay in one's comfort zone. Putting yourself out there is essential for discovering your limits. Only by living uncertainty do we learn to recognize what truly matters. The basketball process should be observed as one observes the canvas of a painting not yet painted. One who observes a finished painting doesn't focus on the warp of the canvas but on shapes, colors, perspectives. They are drawn in by the suggestions between chromatic and formal combinations offered by the painter, by the visual story that lives within the painting. But any vision without support - not just the canvas, even if it were air -would be impossible. Every vision needs a foothold. Even freedom needs a point of support. With this work, I want to tell not just about basketball but about man, his emotional organization. I want to tell, for example, that our intimate and relational experiences unfold one step at a time. They can certainly blend into each other, but we cannot experience them simultaneously. I want to show their power as a weakness and their weakness as a power, aiming to dismantle the simplistic binaries that dominate public discourse. An example? The fear of not being accepted, a weakness, can become the strength to find your own path on the sidelines.
My approach is not to dictate the interpretation to the reader but to provoke thought and introspection on the complexities of identity and human connection.