By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
In case you are wondering if we made a mistake in the title, the answer is “no”. We aren’t talking about Giorgos Papagiannis, the 13th pick in the NBA draft by the Sacramento Kings, but for Kanellos, the player’s father. Now, you might ask yourself…. what does Dragan Bender have to do with him?.
During the last months, Kanellos Papagiannis has been negatively commenting the Croatian forward (who ultimately got selected as the fourth pick in the Draft by the Phoenix Suns) via his twitter account. In fact, the vast majority of his tweets could have easily been mistaken as part of an informal “Anti-Bender” campaign.
Here are some of the things he has written:
@IAmDPick Push the fragan bender in the court
— kanellos papagiannus (@kanellospapagia) November 26, 2015
In NBA 2016? No is very soft https://t.co/0O4lIfvObp
— kanellos papagiannus (@kanellospapagia) October 25, 2015
No way to NBA hahaha https://t.co/TiMLQvPTKX
— kanellos papagiannus (@kanellospapagia) November 5, 2015
Dragan played for 6 minutes o points 1 rebound https://t.co/R4thS3ZJed
— kanellos papagiannus (@kanellospapagia) November 5, 2015
Hahaha this is the real full statistics hahaha ha https://t.co/xmaZfJVjMA
— kanellos papagiannus (@kanellospapagia) October 25, 2015
I watching sasari vs maccabi! have big smile bender looks like play for u16
— kanellos papagiannus (@kanellospapagia) December 3, 2015
Hahaha no way,they don’t put him play in maccabi will he play in the NBA? https://t.co/HMP0ioclqu
— kanellos papagiannus (@kanellospapagia) January 20, 2016
Kanellos Papagiannis also didn’t like positive opinions or projections that had to do with Bender.
Greek prospect Georgios Papagiannis’ dad is Twitter’s foremost anti-Dragan Bender egg pic.twitter.com/Srp5MHesX3
— Luke Winn (@lukewinn) June 23, 2016
The above reactions even made it to the Sports Illustrated, in an article grading NBA teams for their draft picks. The negative criticism of the Sacramento Kings for selecting Giorgos Papagiannis somehow includes his father’s “tweetstorm” against Dragan Bender.