ATHENS (Greece) - Giannis Antetokounmpo wants to play for the national team this summer and help it return to the Olympics for the first time since 2008.
That good news has been revealed by the president of the Hellenic Basketball Federation (EOK), Evangelos Liolios.
In an interview with Sport24, after expressing admiration and awe for the roster USA have announced for the Olympics, Liolios says he hopes Antetokounmpo can lead the country to triumph at the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Piraeus and into a possible showdown with the Americans in France.
"Team USA, the American national team, has an incredible squad," Liolios said. "If we look at the names, the players who play, you don't know who to admire first. It is incredible the roster that they will have ...
"If we succeed and God willing, we can qualify and play against them; having Giannis with us, the big star of the national team, is, of course, something we want. It's something he wants, too."
Antetokounmpo featured for Greece at the FIBA Basketball World Cups in 2014 and 2019, EuroBaskets in 2015 and 2022, World Cup 2023 European Qualifiers, and at the 2016 Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Turin.
In 2022, he was the tournament's leading scorer at 29.3 points per game and No. 1 in efficiency per game at 32.7. An NBA champion in 2021, when he was named Finals MVP, Antetokounmpo has twice been named as the NBA's MVP.
Liolios isn't just excited about the prospect of having Antetokounmpo in the lineup, but also having one of Greece's legendary guards, Vasilis Spanoulis, as coach.
Spanoulis helped Greece win EuroBasket 2005 and one year later famously poured in a team-high 22 points in a 101-95 win over USA in the Semi-Finals of World Cup 2006 in Saitama, Japan. A two-time Olympian, Spanoulis spent a decade and a half playing for Greece, including his start with the youth teams in 2000.
This season has been his second at the helm of Peristeri in Greece, a team he led to a shock qualification for the Basketball Champions League Final Four in Belgrade. Coach Spanoulis was selected BCL Best coach for the 2023-24 season.
"Vasilis Spanoulis is a huge personality, he was not only a great player, a world-renowned player," he said.
"He is not only an excellent coach who started his career in Peristeri but also has excellent results. It is that as a personality, he is a man who can inspire the players, who will convey to them the belief and confidence of victory and show them the way in which the national team can have success."
When Spanoulis excelled with Greece, in fact, he did so under the tutelage of Panagiotis Giannakis, one of the country's legendary players who won FIBA EuroBasket 2007. Giannakis was in the 2021 Class of the FIBA Hall of Fame.
"Vasilis Spanoulis also had huge success as a player with the national team," Lolios said.
"Beyond EuroBasket, which had won the gold in 2005 in Belgrade... In 2006, if you remember correctly, we went all the way to silver at the World Cup, beating the Americans in Saitama, and in 2009 (EuroBasket), we won another medal.
"Vasilis knows the national team. He knows what Greece means; he knows what it means to play for the national team. It is very different for someone to play with the national team and to play with his team. The national team is not someone's team.
"The national team is a team of us all. It expresses an entire Hellenism, millions of people, and its jersey is very heavy."
Greece will be the host nation for one of the four FIBA OQTs staged July 2-7.
In Piraeus, the Greeks will play in Group B against Egypt and the Dominican Republic. In Group A will be Slovenia, New Zealand, and Croatia. Only the winner of the OQT will clinch one of the remaining spots for the Men's Olympic Basketball Tournament Paris 2024.
FIBA