101 Greats of European Basketball

A scoring machine
In the history of European club competitions, there
have been several great players who, despite brilliant
careers, are missing an important title: the EuroLeague.
One of them is the legendary Nikos Galis,
one of the biggest figures in European and world
basketball of the 1980s. If I had to define Galis in a
few words, it would be easy: a scoring machine. I have
seen many great scorers, and it is hard to choose one
of them as “The Best”. However, in any quick selection
of the greatest that I have seen, I would surely include
Radivoj Korac, Nikola Plecas, Drazen Petrovic, Oscar
Schmidt, Drazen Dalipagic, Dragan Kicanovic, Manuel
Raga, Bob Morse, Juan Antonio San Epifanio and, of
course, Nikos Galis.
Compared to the rest of players on this list, Galis had a
big disadvantage: his height. He was only 1.83 meters tall,
which in theory is very short, even for point guards. But
for most of his career, Galis was an unstoppable shooting
guard! It was unbelievably easy for him to score and he
could do it in every imaginable way. He could shoot from
mid-range or behind the arc. He could penetrate, run the
fastbreak or even jump higher than taller opponents. His
specialty was shooting with contact, with the hand or the
whole body of a defender on his right wrist. He was almost
always shorter than his defenders, but he was also
always stronger and better prepared physically. He could
play 40 minutes with no problems and could jump high
enough to always launch clean shots.
From the ring to the court
Nikos Galis was born in New Jersey, USA, on July 27,
1957, as Nikolaos Georgallis. His parents, Georgios and
Stela, were Greek emigrants with roots on the island of
Rhodes. Nikos’s father was an amateur boxer. He thought
that boxing was ideal for his short, strong son. Until age
15, Galis also boxed, but constant pressure from his
mother led him to switch sports. He tried American football,
but he soon turned to basketball, and in no time became
the best player on his high school team, as a point
guard. In 1975, he entered Seton Hall University, where
coach Bill Raftery changed his position to shooting guard.
The results were mind-blowing. In the 1978-79 season,
Galis finished as the third best scorer in the NCAA with
an average of 27.5 points per game, behind only Larry
Bird (28.6) and Lawrence Butler (30.1). His scoring average
over four years of college was 20.3 points. In April
1979, he played in the college basketball all-star game
in Hawaii and everything pointed towards a great future
in the NBA. However, his agents seemed to be more focused
on managing singer Diana Ross and Galis slipped
to the fourth round, where he was selected by the Boston
Celtics. He had to go through the summer camps and
fight with several other players for one or two free spots
on the team. An injury kept him sidelined, and when he
returned, the Celtics’ roster was already closed, so coach
Bill Fitch wished him better luck for the following year.
It’s difficult to know whether Boston, with this decision,
lost a great player. But there is no doubt that European
basketball, especially Greek basketball, got the
better side of the deal. A neighbor in New Jersey who
was also of Greek origin tried to convince Nikos to go to
Greece to play for Panathinaikos. But Nikos didn’t want
to go far from home and also refused an offer from
Olympiacos. The clubs only offered him long contracts
and he wanted a one-year deal so the next summer he
could try for the NBA again. The third club that tried to
101 greats of european basketball
Nikos Galis
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