Βy Nikos Varlas/ varlas@eurohoops.net
On Thrusday night Dimitris Diamantidis will reach the milestone of 200 Euroleague games! The captain of Panathinaikos is at – quite fitting – the 13th place of the all time list and after the game against Lokomotiv Kuban will be sharing the 12th spot with an other Greek player who is three years younger than him and has been a teammate of him in the Greek national team! He is Nikos Zisis who is competing this season in Eurocup, but he already has played 200 games in Euroeague.
The top ten Euroleague all time list
- Papaloukas 252
- Τsartsaris 239
- Navarro 237
- Andersen 224
- Basile 223
- Lakovic 218
- Batiste 213
- Vidal 211
- Jasikevicius 209
- Holden 209
As you can see on top of the list there are two more Greek players, who have recently retired from the courts, Theodoros Papaloukas and Kostas Tsartsaris. If Juan Carlos Navarro stays healthy, he will pass Theo in the top spot during the current season, as he needs just 16 more games.
Mike Batiste is the first American in the list, having the 7th place, a milestone that will be hard to reach for quite some time. In the 10th place there is also an other American, J.R. Holden, who has also retired.
The unfair!
It safe to say that the new format of Euroleague with 14 games in Top16 will change the record books drastically in the next few years and that will devalue what some players who are already considered legends achieved mainly during the first decade of the competition, starting from 2000-1 season!
The best case scenario for all those players was a maximum of 23 games per season because of the old format (10 games in regular season, 6 in Top16, best of five playoffs series and 2 Final Four games) and in some cases the games were even fewer. Initially there were no play offs and the best four teams for the four Top16 groups played in the Final Four…
Since last season, the longest possible season for a team is 31 games – Euroleague champion Olympiacos played exactly this number – and if you count the extra eight games per season during, let’s say, a decade, the advantage in the all time list for the younger generation will by huge.
However, as they say, records are meant to be broken!
One of the most successful
Let’s get back to the main protagonist of our story, Dimitris Diamantidis, who has already made a great start during the season, specially in creating offense, as he has 8.3 asp in three games so far. If he stays healthy during the season and Panathinaikos gets the ticket to the Final Four, then he could reach the 227 games milestone and get to the fourth all time spot.
The Greens’ captain is playing his 10th season in Euroleague, having won three titles (2007, 2009, 2011) and being two times Final Four MVP in Athens (2007) and Barcelona (2011).
In 20011 he was also the Euroleague season MVP and his name is synonymous with defense, as he have won a record 6 times the best defender award. He has been also a member of the All Euroleague team four times.
How can a player be so consistent and stay in the top level for so many years? You can read in Eurohoops his view on the matter in his interview about the way he keeps himself fit and ready all the time.