RealGM

I take the liberty to start a new subject that will follow Giannis's progress and results with the Greek NT. If the admins however believe that it is not needed then we should probably stick to Giannis Development thread. However Giannis has a long and bright future with the Greek NT as well so I guess this thread could grow a lot. Please all europeans (like me) who post try to make the post imperial/CT time zone friendly out of respect to the majority of the users here.

Enough "blah blah" let's start.

Some Guidelines so that we can all talk in "banana scale":

Imperial/Metric
2.00m = approx 6ft 7'
2.13m = approx 7ft
(1 inch = 2.54 cm)

200lbs = 90.7 Kg (1 lbs = 0.454 Kg)

Time:
AM/PM is rarely mentioned in Greek time, we use 24h format, so AM times are the same in US and Greece, for PM you just add 12 (1PM = 13:00 , 2PM = 14:00, ...)
Greek Time - 8 = Central Zone Time, so if a match in played in Greece (friendly games) at 21:00 then it is at 1PM CT .
Eurobasket 2015 is held in 4 countries. 3 of them (Germany, Croatia, France) are on CET (= CT +7) , one (Latvia) is the same as Greek Time (CT +8)

Team:
Greece has a good roster and the hopes are (like always high), last weekend the Greek U18 team won the European Championship and now the Men's team hopes to continue the good results.
Other NBA players you might know from the Greek Team : Kostas Koufos, Nick Calathes, Kostas Papanikolaou (however only 1 or 2 of them will be NBAers next year).

Games:
Friendly Schedule:

August 9: Belgium-Greece (friendly game in Belgium)
August 14-15: Tournament in Turkey (Greece,Turkey,Bosnia,Tunisia)
August 21-23: Tournament in Greece (Greece,Bosnia,Russia,Czech Republic)
August 27-29: Tournament in Greece (Greece, Turkey, Lithuania, Holland)

Eurobasket 2015 (Germany, France, Croatia , Latvia)

http://www.eurobasket2015.org/

Greece is in Group C against : Netherlands, Croatia, Slovenia , Georgia, F.Y.R.O.M . First 4 qualify for the Knockouts (it is more likely that Henson will have 95% in FT next season , than for Greece not to make the next stage).

Group Games:
5th September : Greece - FYROM 18:00 (CET) (11:00 AM CT Zone)
6th September : Greece - Croatia 21:00 (CET) (02:00 PM CT Zone)
8th September : Greece - Georgia 18:00 (CET) (11:00 AM CT Zone)
9th September : Greece - Slovenia 15:00 (CET ) (08:00 AM CT Zone)
10th September : Greece - Netherlands 21:00 (CET) (02:00 PM CT Zone)

Final is on the 20th of September. So the latest date that Giannis will be back in Milwaukee, will probably be around 22-23rd of September.

Current status:
Training in Greece. Giannis missed the first 2 days due to the NBA Africa Event.

First pic (attempting a 3pts, next to him is Nick Calathes) :



Let's keep this thread updated !

Cheers,

Alex

Here's Greece's preliminary squad for the upcoming tournament, the ones in bold are those who are the most likely to be on the 12-man roster

[Nikos Zisis (Bamberg), G
Vasilis Spanoulis (Olympiacos), G
Nick Calathes (Panathinaikos), G
Kostas Sloukas (Fenerbahce), G
Vangelis Mantzaris (Olympiacos), G
Kostas Papanikolaou (Denver Nuggets), F
Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks), F
Vlantimir Jankovic (Panathinaikos),
Stratos Perperoglou (Barcelona), F
Giorgios Printezis (Olympiacos), PF
Dimitris Agravanis (Olympiacos),
Kostas Kaimakoglou (Unics), F-C
Ioannis Bourousis (-), C
Kostas Koufos (Kings), C
Zisis Sarikopoulos (AEK)


We have only 5 Guards on the roster, so their positions are set; we also have a glut of F's, of whom Perperoglou can't guard anyone at either spot but he's great offensively, Papanikolaou is good all-around and is expected to recover his shooting % in the FIBA 3pt line, Printezis is a back to the basket, agile PF with decent outside touch who isn't great defensively and or offensively, and Kaimakoglou is a jack-of-all-trades type PF, but he's master of none. Good hustle defender and team player, in the past he helped guarding everyone from long SFs (aka Batum) to small C's. At the C spot we have 2 6'11"+ dinosaurs, Bourousis can score on the block and shoots a bit but he's not agile enough to cover most guards in PnR, and everyone around here knows Koufos.

IMO, Giannis will play mostly as a PF, and I wouldn't be surprised if he spent some minute at C, he can handle most Euro Cs and his lack of shooting is minimized at the PF/C spots. Plus, our teams like a lot plaing with 3 Guards, and Perperoglou/Papanikolaou are more than enough cover at the SF spot so there'll be limited minutes available there.

Really looking forward to this Euroleague , we got a good chance and our team is packed with good players.
Im curious in which position Giannis will play at, will he stick to 3 like last yea ro share rotation at 4 with Kaimakoglu and Printezis ?
EDIT: It seems Giannis will play at PF mostly .
http://www.eurobasket2015.org/en/compID_qMRZdYCZI6EoANOrUf9le2.season_2015.roundID_9322.coid_Ag7dLE9CHd2Fv,hFAlXLD1.articleMode_on.html

Man, you guys sure do have a lot of guys named Kostas.

KidA24 wrote:Man, you guys sure do have a lot of guys named Kostas.

"Kostas" is one of the top 5 most popular greek names.
"Giannis" is also in that list.

KidA24 wrote:Man, you guys sure do have a lot of guys named Kostas.

Kostas (Konstantinos), Nikos , Giannis (or Ioannis), Giorgos and Dimitris probably cover more than 30% of the male greek population.

Edit: More than 42% actually ! http://www.behindthename.com/bb/fact/3907283
Edit 2: /End of useless fact of the day

Still see Ninja Turtles every time with TMNT


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

He should be all Eurobasket first team.

Giannis seems that he has put some weight

yannisk wrote:

Giannis seems that he has put some weight

Must of been all the smoothies and donuts, he looks like a PF.. We need him to protect the rim, hes got the ability.

yannisk wrote:

Giannis seems that he has put some weight

This is the first picture of him where his added bulk really hit me. Jesus **** he's a house.

In that other thread hammond said he could be a five in a small ball lineup.

Small my ass.

yannisk wrote:

Giannis seems that he has put some weight

I just put some weight on in my pants.

He's a 4. Not a small ball 4, not a situational 4, nothing less than a true, beastly 4 in the mold of Davis/KG. I loved the wing experiment, and he should still get occasional minutes there, but he's going to completely **** on the league as a PF.

He's gotta be something like 6'11", 7'4-5"+ wingspan, 230-235+ now. And from the Africa game it looks like he's lost nothing in the way of fluidity, quickness, body control, etc. Might even be more explosive with added lower body strength.

I'm confident if we give him 36-37 mpg and play the bulk of his minutes at the 4 he could average 19/10/5 with a couple blocks and all around crazy defense this year. This is gonna be the year he starts making a KG-like impact on the game imo.

Some more training pics :

Looking at that pic above of the whole squad just again highlights how effin huge Giannis is. Ridiculous.

True, he is also leaning a bit. Bourousis (for those who don't know him, is the tall, bearded guy with the darker blue T-shirt in the middle of the circle) is registered as 2.13m (7 ft). Maybe Giannis will be measured at 7 ft after all.

Just 30 seconds of the practice. The guy who makes the videos for the NT is not professional video maker so don't expect much from the quality of the training video stuff..

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_U49DfbgTE[/youtube]

There you go.
Koufos(No 13) and Bourousis(No 5) are listed as 7fters.


If you judge by their shoulders Giannis has the same height with them.
If you judge by their heads Koufos is a bit taller than Bourousis who is a bit taller than Giannis.

I guess it goes something like that.

Koufos is 2.14
Bourousis is 2.13
Giannis is 2.12

Edit: just a bonus pic.

Lol. I was about to post the same pics from the presentation. I agree, he appears to be a touch shorter than the other two.