Βy Niki Bakouli/ bakouli@eurohoops.net
Thirty minutes after 18.00 local time, Jason Kapono’s flight from London landed at “El. Venizelos” airport, in Athens with the American signing his first autographs as a Panathinaikos‘ player right after he passed the arrivals’ gate, where many journalists, photographers and cameramen waited for him.
Αs he said: “I had few tough days lately, but now I’ m here and I cannot wait to play for a great club, like Panathinaikos, together with these great players there are on the roster. The thing I want to do is to offer my best in order to get as many titles as possible. I followed Panathinaikos’ last ten games and I know they play really well at Euroleague. My team is in place to challenge the first place of our regular season group in Russia. We are playing hard, we are competitive. I believe we were playing in a excellent way, last weeks”.
When the reporters asked him about the problem that kept him in the USA he replied: “There was a personal problem, a health problem. But thank God now everything is fine. It was something really serious, but I don’t feel there is any reason to say something more about it. Everything is under control”.
He said he is ready to get into practices from tomorrow “even though I haven’t play basketball for few months. Right now, I feel a little bit tired. But I am ready. I will have my tests tomorrow and then I ll step foot on the court”.
His goals are “to get more championships, more titles. It’s a really easy question to answer. I know most of the people know me for my shooting, but I can do many other things. Not just shoot well. In order to play in the NBA, you have to do many other things for your team. You need to know what to do in offense and in defense. I have played for many NBA teams and I know what I have to do, any given time. I know I can help Panathinaikos and I can play smart. I had the luck to play alongside with many great players, like Kobe Bryant and Shaq. I have the experience to handle things”.
That’s not the only good news for Panathinaikos. After Dimitris Giannakopoulos outbreak, his father Pavlos and his uncle Thanasis clarified to the press on Monday that their family will continue to own the team.