By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
Olympiacos‘s defense was the second best in the EuroLeague. Few contributed to this as much as Kostas Papanikolaou. The irreplaceable gap left by his absence in the last five games of the regular season and the first game of the playoffs made this more than clear (1-5). The same view is shared by Eurohoops‘ editorial team across all of its editions: Greek, English, Turkish, Spanish, Russian and German.
Finding the winner was not an easy task, but with 36.7% of the votes, against 26.7% that went to Panathinaikos‘s Nick Calathes, the Reds’ 28-year-old small forward was voted as the defender of the year.
The winner of the award for 2016, CSKA Moscow‘s Kyle Hines, followed with 13.3%, while his predecessor – who won it twice and, in fact, back to back – Anadolu Efes‘s Bryant Dunston, got 6.7%, as did Fenerbahce‘s Jan Vesely. Khimki’s Stefan Markovic, Fenerbahce‘s Brad Wanamaker and CSKA Moscow‘s Cory Higgins rounded out the results with 3.3% each.
KOSTAS PAPANIKOLAOU
Olympiacos | Forward | 2.04 | 31/07/1990 | Greece
8.3 points | 4.3 rebounds | 2.1 assists | 1 steals | 0.4 blocks | 1.4 turnovers | 24:03 minutes | 11.3 PIR
Kostas Papanikolaou was third in defensive rebounds and first in steals for Olympiacos and this is further proof of the importance of his role in the team’s defensive function. With 3.3 defensive rebounds on average, he tied his personal best in the EuroLeague, while with 1 steal he got close to his career high (1.2) from last season.
See how 30 Eurohoops writers voted:
