MIES (Switzerland) - They won the FIBA EuroBasket, they played the Final of the FIBA Basketball World Cup, but they never made it to the Semi-Finals of the Olympic Games.
Greece are a true European powerhouse, and with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Vasilis Spanoulis leading this generation, they are hoping to climb the podium in Paris.
First, they will need to escape a loaded Group A, next to Australia, Canada and Spain.
The Roster
Giannis Antetokounmpo has been with the national team for ten years now, and judging by his FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament performances, he seems to be playing his best basketball in this environment.
A lot of it has to do with Greece hiring Vasilis Spanoulis as their national team playcaller. A true legend of the game, Spanoulis has three european club titles to his name, with three Final Four MVP awards as well, seven Greek League championship, four Greek League MVP and Greek League Finals MVP awards, gold with the national team at the FIBA EuroBasket 2005, silver at the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2006, bronze at the FIBA EuroBasket 2009.
Long story short - he is a winner. Even in his two-year long career as a head coach, he already picked up one major accolade, being named the Basketball Champions League Coach of the Year after guiding underdogs Peristeri bwin to a Final Four appearance.
It took that kind of a winner to set up plays for Antetokounmpo, who also stuffed his trophy cabinet with one NBA championship, one NBA Finals MVP and two NBA MVP awards.
All they do is win, and their first tournament together in these roles put Greece back to the Olympic map after a 16-year long sabbatical.
The key was to give everybody else the green light to shoot, even the seven-footer center Georgios Papagiannis who can make multiple threes with ease. It wasn't just him, Greece had games with nine different men scoring at least one three-pointer during the FIBA OQT, and their point guard knows exactly how to get everybody involved.
Nick Calathes is another player who has seen it all on the basketball court. At 35, he is finally an Olympian, and his pass-first mentality works perfectly with this lineup, best evident by his 10.5 assists per game, the most in all four FIBA OQT tournaments in July.
The Question
What happens if "the others" aren't making the shots? Croatia showed a potential way to deal with Giannis Antetokounmpo, by putting their center Ivica Zubac on him, waiting in the paint and daring him to shoot, while both the strong and the weak side were sagging off their players, building a wall and gambling on outside shots.
The plan did not work as Papagiannis knocked down five three-pointers.
Greece made a total of 54 threes on 124 attempts, 43.5 percent for the OQT.
That means they are yet to have a cold shooting game this summer. Their reaction to a shooting slump will determine their fate in Group A.
The Hope
Sure, basketball is a team sport. But if you have to be dependent on one guy, it may as well be one of the best basketball players alive right now, right?
Giannis Antetokounmpo is healthy, he showed no signs of rust after missing nearly three months of basketball this year. And he is probably the most motivated he's ever been, knowing he is the flag bearer for Greece at the Opening Ceremony in Paris 2024.
He was emotional with 12,000 fans in the stands of the Peace and Friendship Stadium shouting his last name after winning the Olympic ticket, and when you put it all together, we could witness historical numbers from #34 in France.
The Fear
Something is off when Greece are playing the Olympics. For a team with brilliant results in all other major events, the fact that they never finished higher than fifth is a bit worrying going into this summer's Games.
Even when they had that amazing run of reaching the Semi-Finals of the FIBA EuroBasket and FIBA Basketball World Cup in 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997 and 1998, they only finished fifth at the 1996 Summer Olympics.
Even when they hosted the event in 2004, they could still not get over the Quarter-Finals hurdle, claiming another fifth spot.
Even when they had their strongest generation ever, in between winning the FIBA EuroBasket 2005, reaching the Final of the World Cup in 2006, plus two more Semi-Finals of EuroBasket in 2007 and 2009, they once again were fifth at the Olympics in 2008.
That was also the last time they made the Olympics before 2024.
Fifth place curse? The fear is that it really exists.
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