By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Dominique Wilkins and Byron Scott played in the EuroLeague because of Pavlos Giannakopoulos and Charles Barkley almost did the same. The news of his death was published on the NBA official website and his ambitions for Panathinaikos and the European basketball extended to the other side of the Atlantic.
“I don’t like fast cars, I don’t gamble, my only passion is Panathinaikos“. That was the typical explanation of the late Pavlos Giannakopoulos when he was asked why he spent so much money for the Greens, getting very little in return.
It’s not even a secret that European basketball powerhouses are not making money, even at this day, and much less back in the 90s when Giannakopoulos and Panathinaikos became a household name in Europe.
So either a rich owner or a rich multisport club supports their losses and Pavlos Giannakopoulos, the founder of the pharmaceutical company VIANEX, was the man who turned Panathinaikos basketball into a dynasty.
The net worth of the pharmaceutical company – which is now estimated near €1 billion – was big enough even by the late 70s when Pavlos Giannakopoulos wanted to become the owner of Panathinaikos football team. He lost the bid to the Vardinogiannis business family and almost a decade later in 1987, he became the president of the amateur section of the club.
That section included the basketball team and Giannakopoulos’ election happened during the days of Eurobasket 1987. With Greece winning gold, it was a new dawn for basketball in the country and Giannakopoulos wanted to make Panathinaikos the best team ever, not only in Greece but also in Europe.
Panathinaikos was already the team with the most championship titles in Greek basketball, but Aris BC with the star duo of Hall of Famer Nick Galis and Panagiotis Giannakis was the team to beat at the time, dominating Greece for a decade.
That’s why Giannakopoulos wanted the best.
“I have seen last night on TV a great player on the NBA All-Star Game that we should get, he is called Ma… something”, he said to the stunned Richard Dukeshire, the American coach of Panathinaikos during the 1987-88 season. Giannakopoulos, who had confessed that he didn’t know anything about basketball at the time, meant Magic Johnson. “If you want him, you have to give him the keys of your company“, was Dukeshire’s answer.
And while he didn’t get Magic, two years later he signed the 45th pick of the 1990 NBA draft, Antonio Davis. He proved to be the first step on a long line of notable NBA players who played for Panathinaikos.
The Greens had coaches who didn’t believe that NBA veterans would be effective in Europe, especially the two Serb legends, Boza Maljkovic and Zeljko Obradovic. Giannakopoulos, on the other hand, wanted the prestige of those players. And finally, in 1995 he made it happen.
After flirting with him since 1994, Dominique Wilkins signed a two-year deal with Panathinaikos in 1995. Giannakopoulos took advantage of the 1995 NBA lockout, which lasted until the 12 of September, and Wilkins exercised a buyout option on his contract with the Celtics, which still has two years remaining. The 35 years old Wilkins was offered the richest contract ever by the time for a player outside the NBA, a total of $7 million for two years.
The money Dominique got, considering the NBA salaries before 1995, was the biggest paycheck in his career.
According to the “International Herald Tribune” Dominique Wilkins “to the amazement of everyone but his peers, he accepted the two-year deal in Greece, including a raise close to $2 million, plus a four-story, marbled villa of his choosing, a maid, two cars, and payment of his Greek taxes“.
With Wilkins being the star attraction, Panathinaikos became the first Greek team that won the EuroLeague – then called European champions cup – in 1996, the first of the six EuroLeague titles that the Greens currently have.
And now here’s the craziest part of the story. Wilkins decided to leave the team during the 1996 Greek league finals, in which Panathinaikos without him lost to arch-rival Olympiacos. Wilkins said that he was injured, his quarrels with Maljkovic were a daily occurrence, and finally, after initially suing him in US courts, Pavlos Giannakopoulos decided to pay him the whole seven million of the two-year contract, despite the fact that Wilkins never returned to Greece.
Why? He knew that this was the premium he had to pay in order to get respectability on the other side of the Atlantic. After a few months, Pavlos Giannakopoulos used the example of his dealings with Dominique Wilkins in order to convince the Merck pharmaceutical company to do business with him. And while coaches still didn’t like the idea of NBA veterans, he and his brother, Thanasis Giannakopoulos, were constantly bringing them in the roster.
One year later, it was the four-time NBA champion, John Salley who was paid $300.000 for seven games. Salley notoriously asked the team to leave Greece and travel to Miami for a media obligation. He promised to be back in time for the next game. He arrived via a helicopter that landed on the side of Panathinaikos arena, just 20 minutes before the start of the game.
Maljkovic was furious, but Pavlos Giannakopoulos publicly justified Salley: “He is a professional, he kept his word and arrived before the game“. Maljkovic’s anger prevailed and just after one month in Greece, Salley was released.
During the 1997-98 season, another NBA champion played for Panathinaikos. With Olympiacos finishing the previous season by winning the triple crown – the EuroLeague, the Greek League, and the Greek Cup – Pavlos Giannakopoulos signed former Laker Byron Scott. He delivered with the duo of Scott and former Celtic Dino Radja winning the Greek championship title against PAOK, the team of the up-and-coming star Peja Stojakovic.
It’s also a fact that during the summer of 1993 Giannakopoulos was in contact with Drazen Petrovic before his death in order to sign him in case he left the NBA. There are sources who insist to this day, that there’s a signed pre-contract agreement by Drazen himself.
However, the most ambitious transfer story involving Panathinaikos and Pavlos Giannakopoulos involves a player bigger than Dominique.
With Byron Scott leaving the team in the summer of 1998, Giannakopoulos decided to go after Charles Barkley. “We are targeting Barkley, he is the kind of star we want after Wilkins, Radja, and Scott“, he admitted in an interview to the newspaper “To Vima”.
Once more the NBA was suffering from a lockout, that resulted in the shortened 1998-99 season. Giannakopoulos believed that he had the chance to repeat what he did with Wilkins, but that was not the case with “Sir” Charles. A deal was never made, Panathinaikos signed Serb legend Dejan Bodiroga and never regretted it.
While players like Tony Delk and Tracy Murray also signed with Panathinaikos the following years, the financial gap that was created between the NBA and European basketball never gave to Giannakopoulos the chance to do again a sensational move like those he achieved in the 90s.
But Pavlos Giannakopoulos had another even bigger endgame in mind. He ended up loving not only Panathinaikos but also basketball and he wanted his club to be among the pioneers of a possible European NBA expansion.
The expansion plan across the Atlantic is currently on ice by the NBA, that was not the case a decade ago. Even recently Real Madrid‘s president Florentino Perez talked about this possibility, however since 2004 and the Athens Olympics it was rumored that Pavlos Giannakopoulos was pushing for Panathinaikos to be among the first teams included in the possible expansion.
That’s why the last words belong to the NBA senior vice president and head of international basketball operations Kim Bohuny
“I am deeply saddened by the passing of Pavlos Giannakopoulos, a legendary figure in basketball who was vital to the growth of the game throughout Greece and Europe. I send my deepest condolences to the Giannakopoulos family.“