By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
The two times NBA champion in Mario Chalmers spent the past year in Europe playing for Segafredo Virtus Bologna in Italy as well as for AEK Athens in Greece.
He enjoyed the experience of playing in a different environment and under different coaching styles: “I had a lot of fun playing overseas. The game is different, the coaching is different. From my experience, I’ve run into two coaches that both told me that they don’t like the NBA or the NBA game style. But then they’ll come to you like, “Hey, you see the way that Steph Curry runs to the corner? Make sure you do that too!” So, it’s just funny to be over there and hear how they talk about American basketball and NBA basketball,” Chalmers said on the HoopsHype Podcast.
Greece seems to have left a strong impact on the 34-year-old veteran guard and he noted that coach Ilias Papatheodorou impressed him.
“But, I mean, it’s a lot of fun being over there. The fans are great. You get to go to new cities and the cities are great. It’s a lot of fun to experience a different culture and live life and be able to travel while playing basketball at the same time… I had a blast in Greece. That coach was amazing. I had a lot of fun playing for him, but then our season was cut short because of COVID-19. But that was definitely a lot of fun playing over there. I hope to go back there, if I can.”