101 Greats of European Basketball

Vladimir Stankovic
Four Efes players and even the FIBA delegate wound up
in the hospital. In a tense and ugly game, Efes was close
to victory, but in the final minutes the experience of Roy
Tarpley (19 points, 18 rebounds) and Giannakis himself,
despite only 2 points, allowed Aris to take the win.
Galis, meanwhile, was not lucky with Panathinaikos
either. He managed to play in the 1994 Final Four in
Tel Aviv, but in the end, he retired without fulfilling his
dream of winning the continental crown. Giannakis was
a bit luckier. He followed Galis’s footsteps and signed
for Panathinaikos in 1994, after a season with Panionios.
His first attempt at the Final Four with Panathinaikos,
in Zaragoza in 1995, ended like the others with
Aris. But on the second try, in Paris in 1996, Giannakis
finally managed to lift the EuroLeague trophy. In a
dramatic and historic game, marked by some serious
mistakes by the referees and the officials’ table, Panathinaikos
won 67-66. Giannakis, at 37 years old, played
38 minutes and scored 9 points. His dream came true.
That same summer he played at the 1996 Olympics in
Atlanta and then retired. Behind him were 351 games
with the Greek national team and 5,309 points, which
remains the record. In the Greek League, he scored
9,291 points, the third-best mark of all time.
A miracle in Piraeus
What Galis and Giannakis didn’t manage to do with
Aris, they accomplished with the national team at Euro-
Basket 1987. It was played in the then-new Peace and
Friendship Stadium in Piraeus. Giannakis had played his
first EuroBasket in 1979 in Turin and finished with a solid
average of 7.8 points. Two years later in Prague, his
average was already 10.2 points, and in 1983 in Nantes,
he climbed to 15.3. In the 1986 World Cup in Spain, he
had 17.3 points per game. Giannakis’s most brilliant
moment occurred on June 14, 1987, when Greece, in
the game known as “The Miracle of Piraeus”, managed
to defeat the USSR in overtime 103-101 to claim the European
title. Galis played all 45 minutes and scored 40
points, but the leadership, vision, assists and security
that Giannakis gave to his teammates turned him into
the other hero of the game. Two years later, in Zagreb,
Greece again reached the EuroBasket final but lost to
Yugoslavia. At the 1990 World Cup in Argentina, Giannakis
averaged 26.0 points, in the 1991 EuroBasket
he scored 19.8 and in the 1993 EuroBasket, it was 19.3.
Giannakis was a point guard, so by definition, he
was supposed to be a player that helped the others. But
his great abilities turned him into a great scorer. Since
Galis could also play point without problems, often they
switched positions during a game, causing confusion
for the opponent. Giannakis stood taller than Galis, had
a good outside shot, penetrated well and was also a
solid rebounder. But most of all, Giannakis was a leader.
In decisive moments, his teammates turned to him
because his hands were like a safe around the ball, and
he could also score. He was a life insurance policy for
his teammates and coaches. He was also a sportsman
of true excellence, without a single stain in his résumé,
a player loved by all, even by rivals, who respected his
professionalism.
EuroBasket history-maker
Panagiotis Giannakis is the only man in basketball
to have been European national champion both as a
player and coach. Svetislav Pesic did it at the club level
with Bosna in 1979 as a player and with Barcelona in
2003 as a coach. However, at the international level,
only Giannakis has EuroBasket titles as a player (1987
Piraeus) and as a coach (2005 Belgrade).
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