101 Greats of European Basketball

had offers from FC Barcelona and Panathinaikos and he
chose the Greek team, with whom he reached the 1994
EuroLeague Final Four in Tel Aviv. He played a great season,
with 18.2 points and 8.1 rebounds in Europe, as
well as 14.6 points per game in the Greek League.
Despite his two great performances at the Final Four
– 32 points against Olympiacos in the semifinals and 29
against Barcelona in the game for third place – Panathinaikos
could only finish third. I think that was the best
Volkov performance I ever saw live. The following year
he went to archrival Olympiacos, with EuroLeague averages
of 12.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists, while
he put up 15.8 points per game in the Greek League.
Back problems forced him to retire at age 31, even
though he would be back for a brief period of time a little
later. In the preliminary round for the 1999 EuroBasket
in France, he decided to help Ukraine. He was back
on the court at age 35, and he did pretty well. Against
Spain, he had 14 points and 8 boards, against Israel 8
plus 8, and against England 13 plus 7. But Ukraine didn’t
manage to qualify.
In the year 2000, Volkov founded a new club, BC
Kyiv, where he played until 2002, when he retired for
good. Since then he has become a politician. He was
the minister of sports in his country, was elected several
times to the Ukrainian parliament, and served as
president of the national basketball federation. For the
2011 EuroBasket in Lithuania, Volkov signed his former
coach in Atlanta, Mike Fratello, as the national team
coach for Ukraine. With Fratello still on the bench at the
2013 EuroBasket in Slovenia, Ukraine finished sixth,
ahead of teams like Serbia, Italy and Greece, and was
able to qualify to the World Cup of 2014 in Spain – a first
for the country.
Sasha Volkov, the symbol of Ukraine. He was a great
player who continued to do great things for his country
in basketball.
Oleksandr Volkov
101 greats of european basketball
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