Niccolo Mannion (popular as Nico Mannion) is an Italian-born American basketball player who plays as a point guard for the Pinnacle High School in Arizona. He is an exceptional talent and one of the rising stars expected to rule the next generation of NBA players when the time comes. He received numerous lucrative scholarship offers from top Division 1 programs in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, enticing him to come to play for their basketball team while he furthered his education with the school.
Coaches, scouts, and keen observers of the game have ranked him as one of the top-level recruits in the class of 2019. The young athlete has represented the country if his birth – Italy – in several youth competitions at the international level. He is regarded as a certified future NBA star as long as he continues or improves on his current career trajectory.
Nico Mannion Biography
Nico was born on March 14, 2001, in Sienna, Italy, where he spent his early years before his family moved to Salt Lake City, and finally settled in Phoenix, Arizona. He has been playing basketball since he was old enough to bounce a ball around, and his parents have been incredibly supportive about the game their little boy has decided to play. Even before Nico went off to high school, he was already fielding college scholarship offers from across the country including Cal State-Northridge
He was regarded as the best player in recruiting class of 2020 – which was when he was expecting to graduate – by ESPN, Rivals.com, and Scout.com. However, thanks to his stellar academic record, he was able to graduate a year early and reclassify the class of 2019. Virtually every college basketball program with skin in the game showed genuine interest in him and served up scholarship offers. After much deliberation, Nico’s final choice came down to two schools: Marquette and Arizona. The five-star prospect announced that he would be committing to the Arizona Wildcats on September 14, 2018. All the top recruiting services named him the fifth-best player in the entire country.
On the international front, Nico was shortlisted to join the United States national team in 2017, but his name didn’t make the final cut, and it looked like he wouldn’t make it to the FIBA U16 Americas Championship. However, news of what had happened reached Italy’s U20 head coach, Pino Sacripanti, he reached out to Nico’s family and Antonio Bocchino, Italy’s U17 coach, and it was agreed that Nico would field for his birth country in the FIBA U16 European Championship. He spent that summer training with the Italian national team, and he recorded an impressive 19.9 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 4 assists in every game in the FIBA tournament.
Nico is also a member of Italy’s Senior team, having accepted coach Sacchetti’s invitation to join the squad. He is the fourth-youngest player in history to wear the national colors. He made his debut in the World Cup qualifiers against the Netherlands, putting up 9 points on the scoreboard.
Parents
Nico was born into a sporty family to Pace Manning and Gaia Bianchi. His father used to be a basketball player. He was a forward at Utah, and he spent six seasons in the NBA before he decided to seek out new experiences, which led him to Italy in 1989. He spent the next 13 seasons featuring in the Italian league. During this time, Pace met Gaia, an Italian professional volleyball player and they quickly grew attached to each other.
The couple soon got married and had their first son, Nico, while Pace was playing in Cefalu, Sicily. A few years later, Pace and Gaia retired from their respective sports and the Manning family returned to America, where Pace began a new career as a reputable financial advisor. Meanwhile, Gaia reinvented herself as a cooking instructor and personal trainer. The Manning family share a beautiful upscale house, where they all live with the other members of their home: a Labrador named Bella and a Rottweiler named Zeus.
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Nico Mannion Stats
As a basketball player, Nico has long since proven his caliber and abilities are way beyond the date inscribed on his birth certificate. So far in his high school career, he has played 81 games, recording a total of 24.1 points per game, 5.5 assists per game, 5.0 rebounds per game, 2.4 steals per game, and 0.1 blocks per game. Looking at his high numbers, it’s easy to declare his future in the NBA is no longer a wish, but a promise that is soon to come.
Height and Other Body Measurements
Nico Mannion is not yet completely out of his growth phase, but even at 17, he is something of a giant, towering over most people with his 6 feet 3 inches frame. He weighs 180 pounds or 82 kilograms proportionately distributed along his body. Nico is expected to grow up to 6 feet 7 inches, which would give him an even greater advantage in his career as well as improve his marketability by way of endorsement deals.
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