with a two-homer game<\/a> in Italy\u2019s win over Brazil on Saturday.<\/p>\nHis father says that by the time Dante was 4, he figured his future was in baseball. As the story goes, Dante would try to play on his toy basket and Micah would swat his shot away and put the baseball bat in his hands instead.<\/p>\n
Dante says the baseball-over-basketball realization actually happened around the time he was in middle school and realized he wasn\u2019t going to get past 5-foot-9.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very easy choice,\u201d Dante Nori said. \u201cJust keep the cleats on and play baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having Dante wear Italia across his chest for this tournament is a big deal to the family. But it\u2019s not exactly a stretch that Micah Nori \u2014 someone who could easily be an NBA head coach one day \u2014 has a kid who excels in baseball.<\/p>\n
And really, baseball has basically been the family sport.<\/p>\n
Fred Nori, Micah Nori\u2019s father, played three years of college baseball at Indiana before spending a few seasons in pro ball. Micah Nori also played baseball at Indiana, batting a team-best .365 as a senior. Butch Carter got him into basketball as an advance scout with the Toronto Raptors, but he wound up leaving that role to return to the Hoosiers as a coach. Micah Nori returned to the NBA four years later and has been in the league ever since.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing around all these great NBA players your whole life, it helps you out listening to them, seeing their work ethic, seeing what they had to do to get there,\u201d Dante Nori said. \u201cAnd then the standpoint of getting to rep that name \u2014 Italia \u2014 across your chest, you\u2019re playing for your ancestors, you\u2019re playing for your family, especially my grandpa Fred. Him getting to watch is really special. All of that, it\u2019s just all coming together. It\u2019s sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not lost on the Nori family that one of the guys running the Wolves right now was a 14-time All-Star, three-time MVP, a World Series champion and someone who hit 696 home runs in his career.<\/p>\n
Yes, A-Rod is a fine guy for Dante Nori to have in his corner. It\u2019s just another illustration of how, for the Timberwolves and the Nori family, the worlds of baseball and basketball are meshing perfectly together right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlex has been great the few times that Dante and he have crossed paths when Dante was in Minnesota, even when he was in high school,\u201d Micah Nori said. \u201cAlex is always taking time to give Dante some advice. And I think that\u2019s been huge. Just the fact that Dante has been fortunate enough to grow up in professional locker rooms, he realizes that they\u2019re just people but he sees the work ethic. And that\u2019s why I think he gets to the WBC and just focuses on playing his game. He\u2019s not distracted or overwhelmed by it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Around The NBA analyzes the biggest topics in the NBA during the season.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A huge game awaits the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night. It\u2019ll happen in Houston, even though the Timberwolves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5900,6082,7,160,2026,84176,84177,588,113,1765,307,152,577,1407,6,446,11,66,2098,582],"class_list":["post-657298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-playoffs","tag-alex-rodriguez","tag-baseball","tag-basketball","tag-california","tag-chris-finch","tag-dante-nori","tag-fred-nori","tag-in-state-wire","tag-indiana","tag-italy","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-mn-state-wire","tag-national-basketball-association","tag-nba","tag-nba-basketball","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-tx-state-wire"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116225621599945311","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}