By Antonis Stroggylakis / info@eurohoops.net
EuroLeague legend Vassilis Spanoulis isn’t an active player anymore since he announced his retirement Saturday (26/6). The news produced a shockwave of reactions in the basketball world with numerous stars bidding their farewell to the Greek superstar and praising his career and impact on hoops.
Even long before decided hang his shoes for good, Spanoulis had become a myth of a player for every imaginable reason. He inspired (and still does) generations of players, influenced careers, became an example and a beacon for the people he shared a locker room with and the ones who faced him as an opponent.
Then there was the huge collection of team titles, individual trophies and historic achievements but also the highlights. The game-winners, the buzzer beaters, the dribbling wizardries, the beautiful passes.
Here are Top 10 Kill Bill moments out of the many he produced throughout his career . In a chronological order because honestly, it’s unfair to rate some of those.
1. The crunch-time bucket vs. Team USA in the 2006 World Cup semifinal
Against all odds and predictions, Greece wasn’t just competitive against Team USA in the 2006 World Cup semifinal but in complete control during the second half and even up by 14 at some point. Yet the miracle was far from its completion, since no lead was safe against LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony and company.
With two minutes left in the game and the score 91 – 86, Spanoulis took advantage of the space that Sofoklis Schortsanitis created for him and fired a big-time triple to put Greece up by eight. Three of the most important points out of the team-high 22 he scored overall in one of the most stunning results in the history of national team competitions.
2. Dropping Zoran Planinic to the ground and hitting the game-winner
Two stunning highlights in the package of one. It was Game 2 of the Second Round of the 2007 EuroBasket and against Croatia where Greece was looking to bounce back from an ugly performance and a loss to Spain. With five seconds before the end and the score tied, Spanoulis received the inbounds pass, crossed the court, made Zoran Planinic lose his footing and fall on the floor and then buried the buzzer-beater from way deep.
No wonder that FIBA decided to use this play to bid its farewell to Spanoulis via its social media channels.
?? @HellenicBF legend Vassilis Spanoulis has decided to put an end to his illustrious career. Thanks for all the memories, Kill Bill!
? @EuroBasket 2005
? @FIBAWC 2006
?#EuroBasket 2009 pic.twitter.com/fT7JEpD1lJ— FIBA (@FIBA) June 26, 2021
3. Panathinaikos‘ last basket in the 2009 championship game
Panathinaikos had a 20-point lead at halftime of the 2009 EuroLeague Final against CSKA Moscow after putting on a clinic of an offensive game in the first 20 minutes. The “Army Men” were the defending champions though and showed that they wouldn’t go down that easily. They steadily began chewing bits and pieces of this deficit to approach by five with three minutes remaining.
Spanoulis had scored 10 points in the first half but was unable to find his way to the basket after the break. His first and only bucket came at a key moment, when he pulled from beyond the arc for the 68 – 60 to give the Greens some much needed breathing room.
Panathinaikos ended up winning the fifth EuroLeague title in the history of the club and Spanoulis his first Final Four MVP. It wouldn’t be his last.
4. The clutch 3-pointer against Turkey in the 2009 EuroBasket
This was the second of Spanoulis’ two 3-pointers in the overtime of an intense quarterfinal game between Greece and Turkey in the EuroBasket 2009 and the one that mattered the most. It was a bomb from way downtown for a crucial six-point lead with 76 seconds to play that further pushed back Turkey’s attempts to go up.
The final tally for Spanoulis in this match was 23 points and seven assists. While he had played much bigger games before with the jersey of his national team, now he was handling an unprecedented challenge since he was the indisputable leader of the squad in light of a first-time absence of both Theo Papaloukas and Dimitris Diamantidis. Greece went on to win the bronze medal for the first time ever and “Kill Bill” was named to the All-Tournament team.
5. The big bucket against Barcelona in the 2012 semifinal
“They have nothing to lose” – “They shouldn’t even be here” – “No one counted them” were some of the comments on mega-underdog Olympiacos ahead of the 2012 Final Four. Very few expected them to actually make it past the semifinal against a superior – at least on paper – more experienced and deeper Barcelona squad.
It was Olympiacos that was leading for the vast majority of the game but never with a considerable margin since the Blaugrana were hot on their opponents’ heels. It all came down to who would make the right decisions, the fewer mistakes, the big plays down the stretch.
Enter – who else- Spanoulis. With 70 seconds remaining and the score 68 – 66, he overcame Marcelinho Huertas’ defense with one of his trademark sidestep jumpers for a dagger that gave the Reds an important five-point lead. An instant Spanoulis classic but still, not his top play in the tournament…
6. The most important pass of his career
Spanoulis will be forever remembered for his clutch gene, his enormous ability to hit baskets in key moments, last minutes or seconds regardless of any pressure. He wasn’t just an assassin in crunch time but a superb “closer,” the guy who wouldn’t only hit a near-impossible shot to win the match but also the one who would impeccably read the game and make the correct call. It was this decision-making excellence that he demonstrated in the most ideal fashion during the 2012 EuroLeague championship game.
Olympiacos had cοme back from down 19 points against CSKA Moscow and after 0-2 free throws by Ramunas Siskauskas in the final moments of the game, they had an opportunity to complete the upset. Kostas Papanikolaou got the rebound, the ball naturally went to Spanoulis and everyone expected him to take over the last, decisive play.
Spanoulis gained the advantage over Alexey Shved with a crossover dribble and began his drive to the basket, attracting the attention of two help defenders, including reigning DPOY Andrei Kirilenko. The Russian star was ready to deliver the block and this could be a very likely outcome if Spanoulis took a shot or attempted the layup.
But no. Kirilenko’s move to stop Spanoulis left Giorgos Printezis wide open, something that Kill Bill immediately saw. In a combination right out of Olympiacos‘ playbook, Spanoulis dished the assist to his teammate for the game-winner that completed a triumph in Red and perhaps the most stunning comeback in EuroLeague history.
7. The dagger against Real Madrid in the 2013 Final
It was the fitting, dreamy culmination of a magnificent second half by Spanoulis as he pushed Olympiacos to the back-to-back title.
While Olympiacos was up 87 – 79 with 100 seconds to play, the clash against a dangerous Real Madrid team was far from over yet. With the shot clock running down, Spanoulis basically called game by firing a 3-point missile from the parking lot that put the Reds up by 11 and more or less sealed their win. It was one of the five triples he had after the break, when he scored all of his 22 points in the game.
He went on to claim his third EuroLeague championship and Final Four MVP.
8. The incredible shot-making vs. CSKA in 2015
Spanoulis hadn’t scored a single basket with 3:30 to play in the 2015 semifinal vs. CSKA Moscow and Olympiacos was down 63 – 54. The next minutes that followed looked like they came out of a basketball fable.
The beginning was made with a corner 3-pointer and then Spanoulis unleashed all sorts of hell, hitting one shot after the other, including an otherworldly rainbow basket on Andrey Vorontsevich that defied all logic. He then drained the go-ahead triple in the last seconds to finish with 13 points (11 in the last 3:30) and complete one of the most epic scoring streaks we’ve ever witnessed in the last minutes of a Final Four game by a player as the Reds marched to another Final.
9. The 2016 Greek Finals winner against Panathinaikos and Dimitris Diamantidis
The 2016 Greek League Finals between Panathinaikos and Olympiacos weren’t just another chapter of the long and heated rivalry between the two powerhouses. They were also the final games of legendary Dimitris Diamantidis’ career and the last moments that we’d see him going against his friend and former teammate Vassilis Spanoulis on the floor. A battle of the Greek basketball Giants.
And this was meant to be the script for the series finale. Olympiacos went to OAKA up 2-1 in the series and Panathinaikos was leading 81 – 79 after two overtime periods, with just seconds to play. Spanoulis had the ball and the chance to win the match for the Reds with Diamantidis being the one guarding him.
Spanoulis made his classic sidestep jump shot and beat Diamantidis’ defense to hit a game-winner for the ages as Olympiacos defeated its archrival 3-1 in the series to claim the back-to-back title. “Ι thought… won’t you miss it Vassilis?,” Diamantidis joked after the game. “You have us… (implying something NSFW) a couple of times. Miss it.”
10. Becoming the EuroLeague All-Time leading scorer
In January 20, 2020 Spanoulis wrote yet another page of EuroLeague history. In the home game of Olympiacos against Fenerbahce Beko he scored 14 points which were enough for him to become the all-time scoring leader in EuroLeague’s modern era.
Spanoulis retired with 4455 points over 358 career games in EuroLeague. He had also become EuroLeague’s all-time assists (1607) and PIR (4183) leader.