101 Greats of European Basketball

for good reason. Alvertis was a very stable player
who never – or hardly ever – played a bad game. If he
didn’t stand out, he was at least a decent player who
always contributed good things to Panathinaikos. If he
didn’t score, then he pulled rebounds or guarded the
most dangerous forward of the opponents. He always
showed his character. He was the extended hand of
the coach on the court. Obradovic has said many times
that Alvertis was “the best captain I ever had.”
While he triumphed with his club, he didn’t win any
trophies with the Greek national team, whose jersey he
wore 155 times. He played at EuroBasket in 1995 and
1997. He then missed the 1999 one due to injury after
having averaged 18.1 points in the qualifying tournament.
He was back in 2001 and 2003 and he also played
the World Championships of Athens in 1998, but the
Five titles and eight Final
Four appearances between
1994 and 2009, he is living
history of the competition.
In his trophy case we can also
find 11 Greek League titles,
eight Greek Cups
and an Intercontinental Cup
from 1996.
best he did was three semifinals and three fourth places:
at EuroBasket in 1995 and 1997, and at the worlds in
1998. His last great competition was the 2004 Olympic
Games in Athens. He retired from the national team at
30 years old. If he had waited one more year, he would
have won the European gold medal in Belgrade in 2005
and in two more summers he would have had the world
silver medal from Japan in 2006.
It’s a shame, too, because Alvertis deserved some
of that success. All the sweat and suffering from his
hard work over the previous years were a big part of
those two triumphs. However, despite being winless
with the Greek national team, Fragiskos Alvertis will
always have a place in the history books of Greek and
European basketball.
Fragiskos Alvertis
101 greats of european basketball
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