2021 Class of FIBA Hall of Fame: Panagiotis Giannakis

MIES (Switzerland) - Panagiotis Giannakis, the legendary point guard from Greece's FIBA EuroBasket 1987 winning team, is being inducted to the FIBA Hall of Fame.

Giannakis is being enshrined in the Class of 2021, along with vaunted players Mathieu Faye (Senegal), Hana Horakova (Czech Republic), Stanislav Kropilak (Slovakia), Oscar Moglia (Uruguay - posthumously), Detlef Schrempf (Germany), Penka Stoyanova (Bulgaria - posthumously), Sergey Tarakanov (Russia) and Haixia Zheng (China), and coaching greats Chuck Daly (USA - posthumously), Tom Maher (Australia) and Ettore Messina (Italy).

A young Giannakis showed tremendous potential

The signs all pointed to greatness for Panagiotis Giannakis who, at just 13 years of age, was already practicing with the men's team of Ionikos Nikaias and at 14 was playing in games.

Giannakis, ushered into the Greece senior team at 17, learned from teammates, coaches and even opponents and became the greatest of leaders, something that helped him not only on the court as a playmaking guard but later in life, too, as a venerable coach.

Maybe the biggest sign that something huge was on the horizon was his performance at the Mediterranean Games in Split, Croatia, in 1979. Giannakis and Greece beat the hosts and captured the gold medal.

It was such a surprise to the Yugoslavians, who had already written the names of their own players on the certificates to accompany the medals that Giannakis and Greece had to wait and receive theirs later.

At the FIBA EuroBasket 1987, Giannakis helped take Greece to the summit

But in 1987, Giannakis provided much of the inspiration for Greece in their greatest-ever triumph, on home soil against the all-conquering Soviet Union. With his teammates who are also legends of Greek basketball, Nikolaos Filipou, Panagiotis Fassoulas, Theofanis Christodoulo and Nikos Galis, Giannakis helped bring the country its finest moment.

Even as the hosts, it was an incredible result because Greece had not even played at the previous FIBA EuroBasket two years before.

The Greece national team captured the imagination of the entire country and Europe

If that was signature moment of the Greek hoops icon in international basketball, there were many others with the clubs he played for.

With Aris Thessaloniki, he won seven league titles, six Greek Cups and the FIBA Saporta Cup. In that same magical 1987, Giannakis had an amazing season with Aris and was named the league MVP. Later in his career with Panathinaikos, he won another Greek Cup and a EuroLeague crown.

Giannakis hoisting a trophy was a common sight

Giannakis, who would go on to become famous and successful as Greece's national coach, also used his wealth of experience as a player to call the shots from the sidelines. The advantage of showing patience on offense was a constant sermon that he preached, and the need to make the extra pass.

Even so, as a player for the national team, his 5,301 points scored for the national team are the most of all time in Greece.

Upon discovering that he was going into the FIBA Hall of Fame, Giannakis said: "I was very happy to hear this. It's something that is really nice to be a part of the explosion of basketball around the world and also for my country because I know that my generation and the new guys showed to everybody that we could make something really good.

"It doesn't matter if you don't have the information, the facilities. If you don't have the heart … If you try, if you love your game, you can do something really good and we did something incredible for the way in which we built it."

Giannakis never fails to thank others.

"A lot of people helped me," he said. "Even players who played against me, they gave me a lot of lessons, it was unbelievable. I want to say a big thanks and I want them to remember me in a good way as a sportsman. So the board of FIBA, I want to thank them also because they remember me and they make me very happy."

Name	Panagiotis GIANNAKIS
Category of Inductee	Player (Point Guard - Shooting Guard)
Date of birth	1st January 1959
Place of birth	Níkea, Greece
Nationality	Greek
Height	1.92 m – 6ft 4in
Clubs	Ionikos Nikaias (1971 – 1984) Aris Thessaloniki (1984 – 1993) Panionios (1993 – 1994) Panathinaikos (1994 – 1996) [/unordered]
Club highlights	Greek 2nd Division champion (1975) Three-time FIBA European Selection (1980, 1987, 1990) Seven-time Greek League champion (1985–1991) Seven-time Greek Cup winner (1985, 1987–1990, 1992, 1996) FIBA Saporta Cup champion (1993) EuroLeague champion (1996) [/unordered]
National Team highlights	European Under-16 silver medalist (1976) Mediterranean Games gold medalist (1979) European gold medalist (1987) European silver medalist (1989) [/unordered]
Individual highlights	Debuted in the senior category at the age of 13 Greek League Top Scorer (1980) Two-time Greek Cup Finals Top Scorer (1985, 1988) Greek League MVP (1987) Greek League Assists leader (1989) 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors (2008) Holds the record for most points in the National Team with 5301 points Holds the record for most games played with national team 351 games Is the only individual to win a European Championship Gold Medal as a Player (1987) and as a Coach (2005) Drafted in the NBA as 205th pick by the Boston Celtics (1982) [/unordered]

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