By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Denver’s head coach Mike Malone was interviewed by the Greek TV channel OTE TV for the show “Pick and Roll” and he had something very interesting things to say about Olympiacos head coach Giannis Sfairopoulos.
As Malone revealed, he asked from the Greek coach to become his assistant last summer: “Giannis is my man! I call him “Johny Rocket”. I was with him many years ago in Cleveland, in 2006. He had spend the summer league with us. We are good friends, we are still in touch and he always invites me to Greece for coaching clinics. I also know Ilias Zouros, I call him “Zi”, he spend also some time with me in Sacramento and also this season in Denver. I am sure they could both be NBA head coaches or assistants. In fact I have told Giannis to come work with me this year. However he is in such a good place, having worked all the way up in order to became the head coach of Olympiacos. So he couldn’t leave all that and I totally understand that”.
Sfairopoulos, born in 1967, is the current Greek league defending champ, and has been also the head coach of Apollon Kalamarias, PAOK, Kolossos Rodou and Panionios. He was also an assistant in the Greek national team and CSKA Moscow under Lithuanian coach Jonas Kazlauskas.