By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Greek forward Kostas Papanikolaou spoke to the TV show “Pick and Roll” of “OTE TV” for his first NBA season and his future, which for now includes only the NBA and the Rockets.
As he said: “As you know there’s a team option. They said to me that they want me to stay, that I am a part of the team. However the future in the NBA is always changing. You never know how things may get. You can be out of the team in no time. There’s a deadline for the option until the 29th of June. Talks are going to be made, the draft will take place. I have to have patience. However from the moment I decided to come to the States… I don’t want to give up. I made a decision, I don’t want to prove something, but I want to accept this challenge and make it. I have proved that I can play on this level. I don’t care what people may say. I care about what I want. I could stay in Europe, but I decided to make this step. I didn’t want to try it just for one season and then come back. I want to fight for one, or two more seasons. If I don’t get any opportunity, then yes, I will return to Europe”.
For his first season in the NBA he added: “It was really important for me as a rookie to get the West finals. I didn’t play a lot in the end, but the experience was amazing. I was lucky enough to be part of a team which came back from 3-1 against the Clippers. When I first came, I didn’t expected to play 25 minutes per game, but it happened. Then I got injured, the team made some trades and I was unlucky, like they said in the team. I didn’t do something wrong, but that’s the way things work in the NBA. I got injured again and in the playoffs the rotation was fixed. I was expecting that the season will end this way for me. I knew how teams work in the playoffs”.