By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
It was a perfect summer night in September by the Aegean Sea with Vassilis Spanoulis and Olympiacos as hosts and a parade of key European basketball stakeholders honoring them with their presence.
The gala before the “Night of the Legend” was a who-is-who gathering of European basketball. Olympiacos owners Aggelopoulos brothers were there with the rest of the Reds management, and the full roster of Olympiacos together with the players Armani Olimpia Milan.
Coaches Ettore Messina, Giorgos Bartzokas, Panagiotis Giannakis and EuroLeague Head Coaches Board vice-president Ioannis Sfairopoulos, former players Gigi Datome, Dimitris Diamantidis, Thodoris Papaloukas, Giorgos Printezis, Ioannis Bourousis, Dimos Dikoudis, Kostas Tsartsaris, Panagiotis Fasoulas, Rasho Nesterovic, Milan Tomic, who is currently an assistant coach in Milan, Dusan Vukcevic, an assistant coach of Spanoulis in Peristeri, and of course longtime friend and best man of Spanoulis, Nikos Zisis, responded to the invitation, as also Spanoulis’ longtime agent Misko Raznatovic, plus agents Nick Lotsos, Giorgos Sfairopoulos, and Nikos Varlas.
Of course, the big surprise of the night was the return of EuroLeague MVP Sasha Vezenkov, who signed with the Sacramento Kings this summer but made the trip back to Greece this weekend.
Pero Antic, as the president of the North Macedonian Basketball Federation, and Vaggelis Liolios, the president of the Greek Basketball Federation, were present together with EuroLeague president Dejan Bodiroga, and the Basketball Champions League CEO Patrick Comninos.
Add to this interesting mix Maccabi‘s former GM and former teammate of Vassilis Spanoulis Nikola Vujcic, Maccabi co-owner Danny Federman, the general managers of Olympiacos, Nikos Lepeniotis, the general manager of Milan, Christos Stavropoulos, the general manager of Fenerbahce, Maurizio Gherardini and also CSKA CEO Andrei Vatutin and club vice-president Natalia Furaeva.
Last but least, Panathinaikos was also represented by CEO Vassilis Parthenopoulos, bringing a message to Spanoulis by owner Dimitris Giannakopoulos: “Vasilis, congratulations on an incredible career! I wish you every success in coaching as well”.
So this is an occasion that brought together a lot of European basketball power brokers and in the background of the festivities a lot of other – hopefully good – things may happen.
