Βy Nikos Varlas
His season last year in Bamberg changed the status of his career. Olympiacos signed him, probably because he was great against the Reds in two Euroleague regular season games.
And now Kyle Hines plays in the bigger European basketball scene as a part of a Euroleague powerhouse and he had done heavy damage on Siena in the Game 1 of the Euroleague play offs. Law and Dorsey made things happen in the end, Printezis got the big numbers, but Hines was the MVP of the game.
Not only for his 15 points, but because he was the only defender that really bothered Siena’s David Andersen! Hines was the player that got in front of the Australian and wore him down before the end of the game.
Here is the explanation of what happened in the first game of Olympiacos against Siena exclusively on Eurohoops.net by Kyle Hines himself: “Our team was able to turn the game around the last six, five minutes. We did that because we stayed focused, we stayed aggressive in a very close, hard game. We knew that we had the opportunity to change the game around and made a difference. I give a lot of credit to the group of guys that were on the floor, Acie (Law), Joey (Dorsey) and all those guys. They really stayed physical, they really stayed tough and even when we were down six, seven points the team never gave up. That is a strong characteristic of our team and why we been able to be so successful in this part of the season. When things don’t go well, we continue to play, we continue to get through it, to fight and become victorious”.
When European fans show the video of what happened behind Olympiacos’s bench just before the end of the game, of course they noticed Dorsey’s reactions to the heckling of the Italian crowd.
But everybody on the bench was surprised by the reaction of Kyle. He is the most quiet guy on the team, but for the first time he was furious and raised his voice!
“Shut up and shit down”, he said, according to a source from the team, but it’s important to hear his version of the story and see how his expression change when he remembers what happened and realizes that everybody in Olympiacos was surprised from his reaction.
“People will say that I am a quiet guy with a quiet demeanor. I don’t know. I guess it’s comes out sometimes. It’s comes out the fire and the intensity. There was a situation occurring with some fans heckling my team and I didn’t like it but I think the fans and everybody will hear my voice a lot after we win the championship and be able to be victorious and win the final four and win trophies and things like that. Everybody will hear my voice a lot more. But on the court I am so focused and so determined that a lot of time I am just thinking the next play, or the next opportunity or the next situation and that’s why people say that I am so quiet”.
Well, Kyle is a professional athlete and if he continues to speak with his actions on the court, nobody will blame him if his voice is sparingly heard in the locker room.