By Rigas Dardalis
Crisis; Without a doubt. Economical problems; Lots of them. Greece is going through hard times, but according to Jon Diebler is still the place both to live and visit! In the second part of his interview to eurohoops.net, Panionios’ guard spoke about the unique quality of life in Greece, his transition from college to European basketball and his impression about Panionios fans!
Here is the second part of Jon Diebler’s interview (for the first part click here)
-How’s your experience so far with Panionios;
“I’ ve loved every second of it. I ve been fortunate enough to play for great coaches and for a great organization like Panionios with a great president. My teammates have been great and I think I learned a lot so far. I’ ve struggled a little bit early on, getting used with the style of playing and system. Greek league is very good and tough, I’ve heard nothing but great things before coming here and now playing in it, I see it’s one of the best leagues in the world”.
-Did you talk to Kosta Koufos before coming here;
“Yeah actually I did. He said to me “just be positive and it’s a very good league”. He knows the competition here is really good. I also talked to Scoonie Penn, who played for Olympiacos. He told me it’s very competitive and tough minded. And indeed it’s a very tough league. Like I said I feel that I’ve learned a lot and this experience has really helped me. It’s a very physical league. It helped me grow a lot as a basketball player”.
-You think you needed this experience, so you could make the jump to the NBA;
“Yeah, it has been nothing but helpful. It definitely been a positive. I am looking forward to the opportunity to try to make the team in Portland. Again I am definitely happy and I have no regrets of being here. This has been one of the greatest experienced in my life. First year out of college, first year being married, it been fun living here. Basketball wise it was made me a much better player”.
-And as a person;
“You know, we love it here. Its strange with the media today. You watch the news and even back in the Stated you hear only the negative things. Here we had family members calling and they were asking “are you close to the riots”. And we didn’t even know they were happening. We were 10 minutes away for the riots and we wouldn’t know they were happening. It’s a beautiful place to live. The scenery here, the people are so friendly. They are always willing to help us, almost everyone speaks English and those who don’t talk are finding people who talk to help us. The food is great, we eat at a lot of Greek restaurants. And the lifestyle is amazing, it’sd a beautiful place to live.
-Sο you would recommend to a friend of yours to visit Greece;
“Absolutely! We’ve had a ton of visitors so far and everybody loved it. My wife’s parents have been here and they went to Santorini and they think it’s the most beautiful place they’ve been! And my mom and my grand mom, a couple of friends and everyone who’s been here is like “this is amazing, this is awesome here”. And again what’s not to like; You’re next to the sea, you’ve got the Acropolis, people are so nice, so we’re telling to everyone to come in Greece”.
-Can you make the comparison between Buckeyes’ and Panionios’ fans;
“There are similarities and differences. In Ohio State obviously we had great fans and were very loud, but here it’s like man… unbelievable. I don’t know what they are saying, but they are always standing and always cheering. And I remember my first game, I asked “these are our fans; This is awesome”. Of course I’ve seen fans throwing stuff and that’s nuts. Back home this would never happen. We have cameras, ushers are everywhere, so if you do this kind of stuff you’ll be in big trouble. I love our fans, they are very passionate and they come even to road games to support us. So we wanna do well for them, we owe it to them. Also I went to a couple of soccer games of Panionios and one to Olympiacos and that’s a lot of fun! That’s a whole another atmosphere”.
-So you’ve become a real Panionios fan;
“Yes I have! I have embraced it. I think the team shop gets mad at me and my wife, cause every time we have visitors, we go and “clean” out their t-shirts for basketball. We enjoy doing this stuff”.