Are you saying that last summer you would have imagined Marousi champion of winter with a record of 12 victories and 1 lost? Eternal flame for deception. This is one of the most exciting editions of the ESAKE (the Greek basketball league).
No-one could really suppose that after 14 rounds Marousi would have lead the standings with a margin of two victories on the powerhouse Panathinaikos (10-3), and five victories on the group of thirds, Peristeri and the whole Thessaloniki: PAOK, Aris and Iraklis (8-6). And it’s incredible too that Olympiakos and AEK Athens are relegated in the 7th position, with an absurd 50% of victories (with the same record of Makedonikos Kozani, 7-7), fighting for the last spots in the playoffs!
The league is so equilibrated but it would be dishonest to talk about the strongest championship ever. The best American player is the young power-forward for Marousi, Andre Hutson. He has a future in the Euroleague and maybe in the NBA-while it’s not so far the period of the various former NBA stars in the ESAKE like Walter Berry, Byron Scott, Dominique Wilkins, David Rivers and of great Europeans like Dejan Bodiroga and Dino Radja. The best European actually is Damir Mulaomerovic (PAOK).
This crisis is under our eyes in the Euroleague, where the Greek "Army" is suffering, not only against rich teams from Spain and Italy, with whom the Hellenic teams have had always unforgettable and legendary battles: Alba Berlin can be a problem for Olympiakos now, AEK was playing a Euroleague final only 6 years ago and now can’t win at home Pau Orthez. In this screenplay it’s not so amazing the delightful run of Marousi or the third place of Peristeri in the season 2002-03: the “little teams” who worked well during the summer joined the same level of the traditional powerhouses, who didn’t spend the same enormous amount of money of the past.
Or sometimes they have built teams throwing dollars in the garbage, like Panathinaikos did for Papanikolaou, or Olympiakos for Gorenc and Bagaric. Marousi and other teams, Peristeri, PAOK, Aris and Iraklis, didn’t have the same budget of the green Athens and the Piraeus, but arrived to build very competitive teams; signing players looking for revenge after dark season(s), like Blackney (signed by Marousi after a deluding year with AEK) and Karagkoutis (who after having considered a promise had some tragic seasons with Panathinaikos, Iraklis and Near East, and now is helping a lot Marousi).
"...all the traditional hierarchies have been broken..."
Panionios Smyrna, after a bad start, is now a dangerous team for everyone thanks to the additions of Giannis Giannoulis, disqualified for doping (18 months) and actually one of the best centers of the championship, and Evaggelos Koronios, the forgotten point-guard, probably not considered anymore for his age, but it’s not easy to find a indigenous so dangerous in the same role despite his 35 "springtimes."
Iraklis signed the center Lazaros Papadopoulos, who played in Thessaloniki till the season 2001-02, when he was traded to Panathinaikos: Lazos had two bitter seasons with coach Obradovic (but he has been protagonist in the Euroleague Final, key player against Kinder Bologna), released, he returned to Iraklis: the best center of the league, ask Obradovic who met him as an “enemy” at the opening game.
PAOK signed last summer Damir Mulaomerovic, the Croatian point-guard who has been always considered a non-kept promise, and now in an environment like the one of Thessaloniki, without a stifling pressure, he is the leader of the Eagles of the North and a serious candidate for the MVP award.
Iraklis, PAOK and Peristeri also work a lot with players who have grown-up in the young section ("junior varsity") of their respective teams, and now these teams have a substantial estate: Dimitris Diamantidis, Lazaros Papadopoulos, Kostas Vasileiadis, Panagiotis Vasilopoulos, Manolis Papamakarios, Mihalis Pelekanos, players already on the list of the richest teams of Greece and Europe.
These are the reasons for an amazing and unpredictable championship, where all the traditional hierarchies have been broken: it won’t help Greek basketball for the present, but this will bring spectators, attention and sponsors in the peripheries. And the growth of the suburbs of this sport will give a new dimension to the Greek basketball: not only Panathinaikos and AEK, Olympiakos and PAOK, but Marousi, Peristeri, Makedonikos. Improving the suburbs, the classical center will grow too, bringing back the Hellenic basketball to the level it deserves on the European context: the leisure class, to whom Greek teams must belong again.