By John Rammas / irammas@eurohoops.net
Eurohoops caught up with Nick Calathes at Panathinaikos‘ media day held at Nick Galis Hall a few days ago. The Greens captain talked about what he expects for the new season, and the fairness of the game in terms of finance, as well as whether EuroLeague can follow the NBA’s steps.
“At some point, you have to say we’re due to the Final Four, we’re due to win the EuroLeague but it’s never easy. I think people in the past got spoiled a lot, and now they realize it’s not that simple to get in the Final Four and to win a EuroLeague”, Calathes tells Eurohoops TV.
When speaking about teams with higher budgets competing against less-bolstered ones, Calathes mentions: “It’s a fair game, I believe that other teams once said that Panathinaikos also spent more than them in the past. So if we have one owner, other teams may have a club, that’s also a football team. It’s different things involved. We’ve seen it in the past, even with a small budget you can win a championship”.
Could the EuroLeague follow NBA’s steps? Calathes thinks there’s a lot more to do to get there: “I don’t think there’s too much money in Europe to do something like this. EuroLeague is getting bigger and bigger, but in the NBA there are hundreds and hundreds of billions put in, so I think EuroLeague should grow bigger and maybe get a few more teams that can spend that money”.