101 Greats of European Basketball

fouls throughout the tourney. He was chosen MVP of the
tournament and was also named the best player in Europe
through a survey in the Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello
Sport. Galis was for a long time the only 1,000-point scorer
in EuroBasket history and his career average of 31.2 points
is by far the best ever in that tournament. He also owns the
highest career scoring average in the World Cup, with 33.7
points over his 10 games played in that event.
He was a great scorer, but also a generous player.
In FIBA competitions, his 23 assists in a Saporta Cup
game in 1990 are still the record. But that historic game
against the USSR marked a before and after in Greek
basketball. Galis became the most popular sportsman
ever in Greece. He was an idol, a sports icon and a symbol
of national pride. Thanks to him, the Greek Federation
saw the number of registered basketball players
go from 92,731 in 1987 to 163,000 in 1991!
The first European millionaire
All the European greats wanted to sign Galis, but he
loved Thessaloniki. He used his genius on the court and
his popularity to make a lot of money. Prior to the 1987
EuroBasket, he played for $150,000 a year. After that,
he improved his salary to $700,000, and not much later
Galis became the first European player with a contract
higher than $1 million, apart from his many publicity contracts.
In Greece, he was considered to be the player who
earned the most money until then, but nobody could
deny that he earned every penny. The fact that over
12 seasons he only lost 6 games and appeared in 97%
of them (including 99 in a row) says everything about
his professionalism. He won eight Greek League titles
and seven Greek Cups. He was top scorer in the Greek
League 11 times. He was the best passer four times and
was European champion with his national team.
With Aris, Galis went to three straight Final Fours:
Ghent 1988, Munich 1989 and Zaragoza 1990. But despite
his points, Aris always lost in the semis. At the 1989 EuroBasket,
Greece won the silver medal and Galis finished
with an average of 35.6 points. He was also a member
of the all-tournament team with Drazen Petrovic, Zarko
Paspalj, Vlade Divac and Arvydas Sabonis. Galis, like the
legendary Korac, was the top scorer in four EuroBaskets.
At the 1991 EuroBasket in Rome, Galis scored his 5,000th
point for Greece against Czechoslovakia and FIBA allowed
the game to be stopped so everybody could pay tribute to
the legendary scorer. His international career ended with
167 games and 5,130 points (30.5 per game).
In the 1991-92 season, Galis lost the scoring throne
despite posting 31.0 points per game. Paspalj, the new
Olympiacos star, beat him. For the first time since 1985,
Aris did not win the Greek title and was third behind PAOK
and Olympiacos. His golden years at Aris were coming
to an end. For the 1992-93 season, Galis finally left Thessaloniki
and joined Panathinaikos, who used him as the
answer to Olympiacos bringing in Paspalj. Galis finished
with 23.6 points and 6.7 assists in the league as the
Greens won the cup. The following year, he improved his
numbers to 24.1 points and reached his fourth Final Four
in Tel Aviv, but Panathinaikos lost in the semis against
arch-rival Olympiacos. Galis finished his career at age 37
during a 1994-95 season in which he posted averages of
22.5 points and 3.6 assists.
In September of 2007, Galis entered the FIBA Hall of
Fame, and in 2008 he was chosen by Euroleague Basketball
as one of 35 players to be honored among the 50
Greatest Contributors of the first 50 years of European
club competitions. The Naismith Hall of Fame in Springfield
opened its doors to Galis in 2017.
101 greats of european basketball
Nikos Galis
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