By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Nikos Galis took part in the press conference as a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2017. Galis, who is also a member of the FIBA Hall of Fame since 2007, has scored 1030 points in Eurobasket tournaments. And that’s only one of his many achievements.
That number puts him at the fourth place behind Gasol (1111 points), Tony Parker (1104 points) and Dirk Nowitzki (1052). However, Galis needed just 33 games in order to achieve this number with an average of 31.2 points, compared to Gasol’s 55 games (20,4 ppg), Parker’s 68 games (16.3 ppg) and Nowitzki’s 49 (21.4 ppg).
A former draft pick by the Celtics who was born in New Jersey, he never played in the NBA. He returned to Greece, the land of his father and mother, and practically created the big bang of Greece’s basketball. He is as important as Michael Jordan and Bill Russell combined for Greek basketball.
A man of few word, who never liked the press – even though Eurohoops had the honor to host an interview with him – took the podium and said among others: “I am very happy to represent Greece”. And in Greece, basketball for more than a decade was synonymous with Galis.