texasholdem wrote:turbostef wrote:I have some familiy in Houston which I wanted to visit for decades.
Finally there is an important reason to go to Houston
We have a local Greek restaurant here called Niko Nikos and the owner Dimitri was the one waiving the Greek flag at Rockets home games whenever Tsakalidis and Spanoulis were briefly here. So I'm sure he'll be doing that again this season.
So what is Kostas' nickname over there? Dragic's nickname was Gogi but somehow that became Goki I think because thats how our annoucers were saying it.
Hoping Houston can trade Motiejunas to Memphis for Kosta Koufos, who is more of a true backup center for Dwight.
Hahaha Great. I will definetely go to Niko Nikos when I happend to be over there
I really like this patriotic stuff
Usually we say Pap as Papanikolau is too long. This is the most common short name
I have seen in the forums in Greece and in Germany (where a lot of Greeks live besides USA and
Australia).
By the way: Sending Pap to the D-League would not only be offending it would make
no sense. In this case Houston should have better not signed him....
But said his dream always was to play in the NBA. Don't think he meant NBA D-League
I saw some D-League Games because of Thanasis Antetokounmpo last season and
this was really ugly.... Empty Arenas, low level, lot's of ego balling and less team play.
Than better leave him in Europe but not for this amount of money.
I think Houston has to give him a shot for at least 6 Months. If it does not work out
try to trade him back to Europe (there will be a lot of interested Teams in Spain, Russia and
Turkey and Greece (although Olympiacos can barely match an offer from CSKA and
the other rich teams) and don't use the team option for the second year.
But I hope that the management of the rockets understand that this guy propably needs
more than 6 Months to adopt.
Hey this guy barely lived more than one Year outside of Greece. And Barcelona is one
of the Cities in Europe that can be compared to Athens when it comes to Lifestyle.
Everything is easy here. Living in the USA is an other thing.
I have been several times to the USA in the last 12 Months and as much as I like
it over there things tend to be easyier and coller over here.
Restrictions in Athens and Barcelona are much lower than in the USA.
Another issue is the hard season with lots of travelling in the NBA.
In Europe you play 1 Euroleague Game a week wednesday or thursday and at the weekend
one Game in the national League. The Greek League is quite poor besides Olympiacos
and Panathinaikos. For this 2 teams this is like a training session.
ACB in Spain is harder but still not like Playing against European Powerhouses in the
Euroleague. So basically one tough match a week in comparison with back-to-back Games
every 2 days. With flights and distances that we in Europe are not used to.
In Europe you can basically reach every destination in under 2 hours
(except Russia).
I remember Giannis Antetokounmpo saying that he was shocked about this long flights
and changes of hotel rooms. Sometimes forgot his room number and woke up
in Nights not knowing where he was
OK Giannis is a special case as he did not leave Greece at all untill he was 18 Years old.
His first journey outside Greece was with the under 20 National Team
of Greece and the 2nd journey the NBA Draft
Pap is older and lived some travelling througout his career but he is still young and only lived
one year outside of Greece.
If Houston don't want to burn money they should try him the full 2 years as he tends to develop
fast and adopt easyly to new situations. This was the case with Olympiacos.
And in my opinion he was much better in his second part of his Barcelona Run.