<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">The top basketball mind in Europe was studying for his next assignment like an American teenager preparing for the SAT. "It's the collective bargaining agreement," said Maurizio Gherardini, holding up his thick copy of the NBA's financial rulebook when I visited him at his office in Treviso, Italy, in early June. "Whenever I'm on the road, I've got this. I work with it just like in school." Gherardini -- who at 50 years old was considered by most to be the Jerry West of European GMs -- opened up the pages to reveal that he had been applying a yellow highlighter to the key passages, which in itself also reveals that the Raptors' new assistant general manager will take nothing for granted in his new position. While some of the NBA's most respected executives laud him -- his fans include San Antonio's R.C. Buford, Denver's Jeff Weltman and Dallas' Donnie Nelson, who discussed hiring Gherardini before he was signed this summer by Raptors president Bryan Colangelo -- Gherardini doesn't assume that his managerial skills will instantly succeed in the New World. "I understand that I may not be good enough, because of the simple fact that nobody has ever tried it before," said Gherardini of his transatlantic conversion to the NBA. "I look at it as a learning experience.</div> http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writ...dini/index.html
