What Went Wrong With Greek Basketball?

The glorious days of Greek basketball seem to be in the rearview mirror. While Giannis Antetokounmpo is perhaps the best basketball player in the world at the moment, there are many problems that have pushed Greece out of basketball elite. In this video, Gytis chats with BasketNews journalist Giorgos Kyriakidis to uncover why Greek basketball has been on a downfall in the recent decade.

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[BasketNews_com]

Do you agree with the reasons for Greece’s downfall? Can Greeks be at the top again? 🤔 Let us know in the comments below ✍

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[Michalis_Sideratos]

I am 45. During the 80's, 90's and early 2000's people played in the open courts until 1-2 am. Damn I remember being cursed out cause people wanted to sleep. Nowdays its only empty courts. People are afraid to let their young ones out on their own. Especially in the big cities. I grow up where mothers used to go out on their balconies and yell at their children to come in for dinner. My wounds on my knees and ankles NEVER healed. Now its a screen.

[manolisbackpack]

I think the main problem stems from the Greek basketball league. If you take some time to watch a game you'll notice that most coaches choose already developed Americans players rather than the Greek youths. As a result all the young Greek talents gets shoved at the end of the bench with minimum playing time. A system like this can not cultivate and develop great athletes. The best upcoming young Greek is Rogkavopoulos and if you look at his career you'll notice that in order to develop as a player he had to play overseas in Tukrey and Spain, otherwise he would have been rotting in the bench of some mediocre Greek basketball club.

[ΘοδωρήςΠ]

As a Greek I can confirm it. Btw why does this channel have ONLY 127K subs?

[nikosmalliaros]

Congratulations for the excellent study and presentation of the topic. I am 50 years old and I have been a basketball coach in Greek academies from 1993 to 2008, from the good times to the bad times and I experienced the gradual degradation which in my opinion in the basketball development part is due to the following reasons: 1) Reduction of financial assistance from the state, 2) footballization of basketball clubs, 3) chasing the result using zones in defense and many screens in offence, leaving the learning of the basics of basketball second, 4) display of basketball managers and children's trade of players, 5) weakening of local small basketball clubs due to the transfer of small players to the academies of big teams such as Panathinaikos, Olympiacos, Aris, Paok, etc. 6) the consecutive failures of national and collective teams abroad 7) the overpromotion of football in the country, 8) the mentality of the new generation of easy result and the excessive use of new technology. Keep up the very good work you are doing. We always follow you with interest. Nikos – Athens.

[Hellios-Apollon]

The problem is that the Greek teams are investing a lot of money at foreigner players, rather than Greek players. The same is at football as well.

[KonVasilakis]

As a greek i believe one of the main reasons is that we focus more on football (in which we suck, a lot) instead of focusing on basketball which we are by far better.

[panosnikolakakis]

I believe that the second tier clubs, AEK, Aris, PAOK, Peristeri, should build a stable core of young talented greek players. It is the only way for young players to gain game time. My opinion is the Euroleague structure is killing european basketball as well. Domestic competition would skyrocket if the top 2 or 3 teams gained access to EL

[George-ugyh]

We do have some talents in Greek basketball but the problem is that the two big Greek clubs are “killing” the guys by putting them on the bench. All the talents choose to go to this two clubs and not in the rest of Europe. Also, a big academic problem is, that they are not create shooters and scorers but just “soldiers”. We have talent, we do have a protagonist place in every companion but we need to have the mentality!!

[SonicDMonkey]

10:35 yooo, that's my hometown team Karditsa, we made it into BasketNews! :D

Sadly, the crisis of Greek basketball is only just beginning. Players like Sloukas, Calathes, Papanikolaou, and Thanasis are going to retire in 2-3 years, and Giannis will probably retire from the National team around that time. We don't have the personnel to replace any of these players. No, not even Thanasis.

The root causes of this problem are many. Like you said in the vid, Greek players don't get a lot of playing time in Greek teams, Karditsa has 18 y.o..Neoklis Avdalas which some American scouts called "the Greek Doncic" (they're exaggerating, but he's great) and he only gets 11 mins of playing time our team that's near the bottom of the standings. Our small town team often runs 5 Americans instead of playing any Greeks, young or otherwise!

But the problems start at a younger age. For players in high school, it's often the parents that get to dictate how much their son will play instead of the coach, because they nag the coaches all the time, so kids that aren't as good get more playing time over better players who don't get to develop properly.

Also, our coaching style doesn't emphasize shooting that much, which in today's style of basketball is simply unacceptable. And dribbling is almost a cardinal sin here.

Lastly, and this is a rumor I've heard so take it with a grain of salt, player agents are only in it for a quick buck. So they don't care if the young player they're representing gets no playing time in a powerhouse team, as long as the player gets a fat contract and therefore the agent gets a big cut off that contract as well, which is all they care for.

[mbk]

4 month update: Panathinaikos won the euroleague and Spanoulis leads the Greek NT to the olympics

[Super.Hijack]

The downfall is in every aspect of the country, starting from the economy, it is not about basketball. Investing stopped for every sport. Basketball clubs are funded from owners and not the state. Owners stopped spending money in sports (except the 2 big clubs). This explains 95% of the problem. If the economy grows again, the domestic league will start to be competitive again and local talent will be produced again. The infrastructure still exist (there is a basketball court in every neighborhood) and the Greeks still love the game.

[yannaros]

update: the team that won the euroleague was greek, the third place was greek as well

[MNII-mk]

we had the 3 best guards the eurleague had ever seen PLAYING TOGETHER!!
i highly doubt such an era will come back any time soon.
but here is a little kid named neoklis avdalas aged 18 that shows some potential. maybe more will rise alongside with him and we can do something within the next decade.

i also trust in spanoulis as a coach. he knows how to win. i be he will get better resuts than all the previous teams, he knows the way

[Not-Impressed..]

No Greek players in the league. Most of them have secondary roles in their teams.

[troubauk]

Your points are spot on:
1. No long term planning
2. Emotional attachment to victories and past glory
3. Below average academies

[ΠαύλοςΚ-θζ]

It doesn't matter if we are in decline, 1987 and 2005 means everything to us. We will be coming back until we make it happen again with or without great talent with or without resources. There is still great passion surrounding the Greek basketball community, as long as this remains we are still in the game.

[scoutspects]

I am not Greek, but as someone who closely follows basketball on all levels I'd say there are three reasons why:

1. The quality level and depth of their national team players has not been the same as it once was. Yes, Greece has Giannis, but other players don't even come close to the quality that Spanoulis, Diamantidis, Printhezis, Papaloukas had. Not enough depth and star players mean it's tougher to win medals.

2. Youth development seems to be stagnating. There are some talents like Avdalas, Alexakis, Samodurov, Andrej Stojakovic(if he chooses Greece), but that number isn't enough to make you a big threat in international competitions. Think about teams like France which produce about 3/4 high level talents every year.

3. The rise of some national teams both European and international. The level of competition 25 years ago and now isn't the same. Some teams that were still in early development then(Spain, France, Germany) are much better now. Teams like Canada, Australia are also on the rise, which can be supported by number of their players who play important roles in nba and good european teams, and they keep producing new stars for the future. Tougher to win a medal when you have to go against a team consisted of 5 nba stars, 5 great nba role players and 2 great europeans.

[beaffteki]

The past 28 years, two greek teams have won 10 European championship titles. That is better than 1/3 in an almost 30 year period. The national team didn't enjoy sucesss the past 15 years, true but so do many other national teams (Croatia, Italy, Germany). Plus one of the best players in the world right now is Greek. For a country with a population of 10 mil people that is pretty fecking good man

[asoasotriadio]

The main reason is we produce defensive players and noone promotes scorers here... Coaches in young teams want "soldiers" that focus on tactics, defense instead of scoring and showing talent thats the main problem