By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
There are so many interesting numbers, concerning the official class of 2013 ballot nominees from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame that you already have in mind, but we have something you don’t know: Nikos Galis is on the list every year from 2009 till 2013!
After the buzz in Greek medias, surrounding his “majesty” nomination (after all, he is the player who changed the Greek basketball, as everybody knew it, before he landed in Greece), we emailed the press office of HOF to learn few more details. And they assured us Nikos Galis has a guarantee place among the best, as he gets for five straight years the votes he needs from the international Commitee, in order to get his nomination. The new HOF member from the international committee will be announced during NBA’s All Star Weekend.
Galis talked to “102FM” radio station in Thessaloniki and among other things he said “for sure it’s a great honor for every basketball player. When I begun to play basketball, in New York, I couldn’t even imagine we would talk about something like that, some day. It’s the biggest dream of every player. It’s unbelievable, if you come to think all the nominees. I have no anxiety for the result, as it’s a great honor just the fact I am a nominee. And you can understand how big is this honor, when you see on the same list, names like Vlade Divac’s or Oscar Schmidt’s or every other great player there is. I am a member of FIBA’s Hall of Fame, but the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame is the crème de la crème. For sure, you cannot compare it to team success. You see, basketball is not like… tennis. And you cannot compare the joy i had when we got the Eurobasket of 1987 with that, or any other great victories”.
In the question of the absence of any official Greek honors, other than being one of the last torch bearers in the 2004 Olympics, he suggested the officials to “watch what the foreigners are doing and they might feel a little bit ashamed. But I really don’t care about who is going to honor me, as long as I see that people still love me”. And here is our… honor to have his interview, not so long ago.