Already one of the most internationally-represented teams in the NBA, the San Antonio Spurs have gone a step further by hiring renowned Euroleague coach Ettore Messina as an assistant coach. It is expected that Messina will add to the European style of basketball that helped the Spurs win the NBA Championship in June, the franchise’s fifth overall title.

The Spurs have already gone to great lengths to re-sign all of the major players from last season’s title team, and the addition of the 54-year-old Messina figures to allow San Antonio even more flexibility in ball movement and player spacing.

Messina is no stranger to the NBA, having spent one year as a player consultant for the Los Angeles Lakers in 2011-12. Aside from his short NBA stint, the native Italian has served as the head coach of CSKA Moscow of the Russian League and Virtus Bologna and Benetton Treviso of the Italian League. Messina coached Spurs star Manu Ginobili in Italy before the Argentinian made his way to the NBA. In all, Messina has won four Euroleague Championships in his 25 years of coaching in Europe. He has also been named Euroleague coach of the year twice.

"I am honored to have such an accomplished individual join our program,” Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich said of the teams new hire. “Coach Messina is an exceptional coach, a great leader and someone we can all learn from."

Messina’s arrival further announces the official arrival of the international style of play in the NBA. Once eschewed as soft and too finessed for the NBA brand, international stars are now making their presence felt in a big way in the United States. Just weeks ago, David Blatt, another European coach, was hired to take over the Cleveland Cavaliers and bring his international style with him.

A few NBA teams, Utah, Brooklyn, and Los Angeles among them, were interested in Messina to fill their head coaching vacancies, but neither pulled the trigger to hire the decorated coach. Instead, the Spurs jumped at the chance to bring on a man with Messina’s resume. It is believed that he will try to parlay his stint with the Spurs into his own NBA head coaching job.

Messina was selected as one of the 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors in 2008, a fitting tribute to his overall success.

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