By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Dominique Wilkins and Byron Scott played in the EuroLeague because of Pavlos Giannakopoulos and Charles Barkley almost did the same. The news of his death was published on the NBA official website and his ambitions for Panathinaikos and the European basketball extended to the other side of the Atlantic.
“I don’t like fast cars, I don’t gamble, my only passion is Panathinaikos“. That was the typical explanation of the late Pavlos Giannakopoulos when he was asked why he spent so much money for the Greens, getting very little in return.
It’s not even a secret that European basketball powerhouses are not making money, even at this day, and much less back in the 90s when Giannakopoulos and Panathinaikos became a household name in Europe.
So either a rich owner or a rich multisport club supports their losses and Pavlos Giannakopoulos, the founder of the pharmaceutical company VIANEX, was the man who turned Panathinaikos basketball into a dynasty.
The net worth of the pharmaceutical company – which is now estimated near €1 billion – was big enough even by the late 70s when Pavlos Giannakopoulos wanted to become the owner of Panathinaikos football team. He lost the bid to the Vardinogiannis business family and almost a decade later in 1987, he became the president of the amateur section of the club.
That section included the basketball team and Giannakopoulos’ election happened during the days of Eurobasket 1987. With Greece winning gold, it was a new dawn for basketball in the country and Giannakopoulos wanted to make Panathinaikos the best team ever, not only in Greece but also in Europe.
Panathinaikos was already the team with the most championship titles in Greek basketball, but Aris BC with the star duo of Hall of Famer Nick Galis and Panagiotis Giannakis was the team to beat at the time, dominating Greece for a decade.
That’s why Giannakopoulos wanted the best.
“I have seen last night on TV a great player on the NBA All-Star Game that we should get, he is called Ma… something”, he said to the stunned Richard Dukeshire, the American coach of Panathinaikos during the 1987-88 season. Giannakopoulos, who had confessed that he didn’t know anything about basketball at the time, meant Magic Johnson. “If you want him, you have to give him the keys of your company“, was Dukeshire’s answer.
And while he didn’t get Magic, two years later he signed the 45th pick of the 1990 NBA draft, Antonio Davis. He proved to be the first step on a long line of notable NBA players who played for Panathinaikos.
The Greens had coaches who didn’t believe that NBA veterans would be effective in Europe, especially the two Serb legends, Boza Maljkovic and Zeljko Obradovic. Giannakopoulos, on the other hand, wanted the prestige of those players. And finally, in 1995 he made it happen.
After flirting with him since 1994, Dominique Wilkins signed a two-year deal with Panathinaikos in 1995. Giannakopoulos took advantage of the 1995 NBA lockout, which lasted until the 12 of September, and Wilkins exercised a buyout option on his contract with the Celtics, which still has two years remaining. The 35 years old Wilkins was offered the richest contract ever by the time for a player outside the NBA, a total of $7 million for two years.
The money Dominique got, considering the NBA salaries before 1995, was the biggest paycheck in his career.
According to the “International Herald Tribune” Dominique Wilkins “to the amazement of everyone but his peers, he accepted the two-year deal in Greece, including a raise close to $2 million, plus a four-story, marbled villa of his choosing, a maid, two cars, and payment of his Greek taxes“.
With Wilkins being the star attraction, Panathinaikos became the first Greek team that won the EuroLeague – then called European champions cup – in 1996, the first of the six EuroLeague titles that the Greens currently have.
And now here’s the craziest part of the story. Wilkins decided to leave the team during the 1996 Greek league finals, in which Panathinaikos without him lost to arch-rival Olympiacos. Wilkins said that he was injured, his quarrels with Maljkovic were a daily occurrence, and finally, after initially suing him in US courts, Pavlos Giannakopoulos decided to pay him the whole seven million of the two-year contract, despite the fact that Wilkins never returned to Greece.
Why? He knew that this was the premium he had to pay in order to get respectability on the other side of the Atlantic. After a few months, Pavlos Giannakopoulos used the example of his dealings with Dominique Wilkins in order to convince the Merck pharmaceutical company to do business with him. And while coaches still didn’t like the idea of NBA veterans, he and his brother, Thanasis Giannakopoulos, were constantly bringing them in the roster.