Greek Aris fans singing to Giannis a couple of days ago; Oh Gianni, Oh Gianni, Oh Gianni, Get it over with the NBA, enough Come here, my dear brave young man So we can raise (the cup) and win a championship with ARIS.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he does play in a Greek league at some point, but there’s too much NBA money on the table right now.
He went yesterday to a Olympiacos game and was asked exactly that, he said he still has plenty of years in the NBA, maybe he’ll return after.
Here is a video of Giannis sitting with Novak Djokovic at that game;
https://streamable.com/nn5lgh
Before Giannis the best Greek big man was probably Ioannis Bourousis. After having played for Barcelona, Milano, Real Madrid, Olympiacos, Panathinaikos, he returned to his hometown Karditsa and brought the local team (AS Karditsas) to the first division for the first time, where the team has stayed.
I think it would be cool if Giannis did something similar with Philathlitikos and would be very healthy for Greek basketball in general
Damn this shit is hype
[deleted]
Why are you commenting this under every commment simply expressing appreciation for the excitement the fans are showing
I noticed this too, it must be eating u/North_Atlantic_Sea up inside that things in Europe can be better than the Uš¦ Sš¦ Aš¦
I don’t like the US personally, but their basketball is without question the best… That’s why all the top talent in the world goes there.
Maybe cuz heās right
Also people forget the huge racism issues with European fans, especially in soccer
Yeah
What does that have to do with the atmosphere (original convo) or the arena size (what that other weirdo wrote multiple times)?
He and I can give our opinions without calling people weirdos like you do
And it does have to do with it, you canāt just take a few seconds of a clip and say itās better than what we have here without acknowledging the downsides
The original comment from this thread is
And somehow you felt the need to defend the US
Not defending anything, simply making a statement and the guy I was speaking about deleted his comments. Also ādamn this shit is hypeā changes fast when theyāre throwing bananas at opposing black players
Not sure what your issue is
You go in a thread and expect everyone to have the same view point with you and throw a fit if not?
Literally nobody is disagreeing with you on the racism issues, the deleted op was jumping into an unrelated thread and spamming multiple people with basically the exact same message, so not just “sharing an opinion”, he’s injecting negativity into the conversation for no reason.
Itās an odd thing to do, and especially odd to try to undermine every single conversation across this thread
Every time we see a video of atmosphere from TD arena, do we need a qualifier that Celtics fans broke into Bill Russelās house and shat on his bed? Or bring up the situation with Kyrie?
Or is it just that on every video from Europe we should have those qualifiers?
I get that and thatās true but the thing is itās a huge issue with European fans So Iām not going to glorify the fan experience there when itās a nightmare for people not of that particular ethnicity
You are exaggerating massively when you say shit like āALL THE TIMEā, I doubt you know what you are talking about, you probably caught a few headlines and started making a lot of assumptions. Probably Vini situation specifically and thatās it hahah
You are also applying that across the whole continent which consists of all sorts of people, some of which have and have not had accidents like that
In recent history, thereās been a rise in incidents in Spain, some incidents in Portugal, but I personally donāt remember hearing much about specific incidents in Greece or Serbia or Turkey or Lithuanian, the more basketball specialized nations.
Iām not gonna seek out that information to prove a point, you can, Iāll ignore you either way.
Wow I would kill for this kind of fan culture in the NBA
You’d have to lower the price of tickets by a lot. Which means less money for owners aswell. So forget about it…
I see comments like this one coming a lot from Americans. It’s hard to explain to someone that doesn’t understand that but lowering ticket prices wouldn’t do anything in this regard. It has everything to do with culture and the way sports are perceived in Europe/internationally. You just don’t have that in the USA which is unfortunate considering the best players play there.
There is definitely a money element. The thing about European clubs is how they grew. Some guys working in a factory or something decided to start a club playing for fun a century ago, and built the clubs like we build our governments, with members who vote democratically. It’s a lot easier to deal with a single owner, rather than 50k members. When the leadership raise prices, riot. When they adopt some shady sponsor, vote them out. Because every fan is an owner as well, this leads to fierce loyalty. America also has this, in the Green Bay Packers, and just look at how great that fanbase is.
We have a shitload of corruption in Europe in our sports, but it’s all behind the scenes. If that corruption makes the product worse, or is an inconvenience for the fans, the fans will make the life of president of the club very uncomfortable. American greed is a lot more in your face, with commercials and stuff, whereas our greed is instead in form of bribes behind the scenes. Both are dirty as hell, but in different ways.
The NBA doesn’t want to deal with a bunch of fans, for obvious reasons, it’s annoying and we don’t have any money, but complain a lot. That’s why it will probably never happen now that the cats out of the bag, when they decide who to give a new franchise to, it will be individuals with deep pockets.
I’m not American lol. But it’s true that I’m french and not from the Balkans. So I haven’t reach the highest level of that culture in basketball.
However when it comes to football, (soccer for Americans) I know. And it’s definitely not 5k$ a year to go to all games at home without playoffs (which would be like no champions league or league cup in football). It’s insane.
It’s not a USA thing. Some college football fandoms absolutely rival this atmosphere
Wemby’s brought a taste of it to the Spurs, I expect it seep in even more in the coming years.
It’s a tiny, tiny stadium. Indiana has highschool basketball arenas with 2x the size. And it doesn’t cost a lot to get in lol
Edit: not sure the downvotes, has no one experienced big-time highschool hoops?
You have a very hard time accepting that the fan culture in the NBA is just straight up boring.
But is big time highschool basketball boring? That’s what I was referencing
Wait, I’m not talking about the highschool basketball that I don’t know.
I’m from Europe, I watch the NBA and I’ve been to local games and watched some Euroleague too. I have no clue what’s going on in US highschool basketball.
What I know is that the people in basketball arenas responsible for the fan culture aren’t very wealthy, I don’t think the same type of people would be able to afford all NBA game of a season.
The smallest teams in NBA, tickets for all regular season ticket at home without a single playoff game it would be 5k $.
Yeah, that’s why in comparing it to big time HS basketball. 2x as many fans as this, all losing their mind, for $5 a game.
You can’t say euro is perfect, without understanding alternatives in the US exist
Well then do that for the NBA, you have the evidence at home then… That’s what I was talking about.
https://youtu.be/p7vfCBC0_HU?t=88&si=FguVwXKZnr7trmj2
No one’s singing to his brothers?
Itād mess up the rhythm to add āand thanasisā
I love these attempts at jokes, it just literally means nothing. Why would something rhymes mess up the rhyme?
rhythm
How crazy it would feel for an entire country singing you praise. That’s special.
He just needs to come to Toronto for that
Only the 5k people in the arena. There are a LOT of Greeks who don’t like African immigrants, including Giannis
Get some friends bro lol
I’ve got friends. Thankfully none are as racist as the trash Greek fans.
Even their politicians describe Giannis as an ape dude… Get real
https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/greek-extreme-right-leader-in-racist-slur-against-nba-player
There’s racism everywhere kid lol you definitely haven’t traveled alot I could tell
Famously no racism in America and in American sports.
You can watch Red Star/Partizan fans in their 20K arenas, atmosphere is still 100x better than in the US 20K arenas.
Yeah, no American politicians are calling American players monkeys
Man, euro sport racism is wildly worse than American sport racism.
Like it’s not even close. But I guess your ignorance blinds you
He loves it, but he loves that money rn.
Love Giannis, but he is a cheap bastard that cares about every penny. No way he is turning down $60m a year
Speaking of money, I feel like Giannis is on every ad I’m seeing in the playoffs right now. He really took notes from Shaq.
He really is. Off season, he’s got time, loves money obviously. He’s definitely getting busy rn.
The European atmosphere is really unmatched.
Here is another video of Giannis vibing on the sideline, game was played like 2 days ago:
https://streamable.com/tcd0ob
Social media I ripped it from is @arismediafactory
Edit: Another older video of Aris Thessaloniki being up to no good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcvAOpnnMK0
Nba will never have these fanbases
Aris is an amazing club and Hsiao could probably find a way to pay him under the table. Perhaps even offer co-ownership etc. I realise not many folks here have had the pleasure of visiting the Nikos Galis Hall (or Melathron, coolest name ever!) but if you ever get a chance and you love basketball, do.
Bucket list shit.
European stadiums are just in another realm of hype compared to the US lol
Who is old dude next to him?
If it was me I’d take like a 1⁄2 year break just to bring a chip to my country and then return to the NBA š¤·šæāāļø
He can do that at the end of his career. Right now the money’s still too good.
Bro is already rich asf, its about legacy at that point
“to my country”
Dude, all the teams are in the same league, in the same country lol
Oh is it just a Greece specific league? I figure they were a part of Euroleauge?
Last time Aris was in the Euroleague was in 2007. But Giannis hasn’t played for Aris, someone else commented that he also went to a Olympiacos game yesterday, and they are in the Euroleague currently. If he did return to Europe I’d assume he’d play for a team in the Euroleague.
His mother club, Filathlitikos B.C, is in the 4th division in Greece currently.
Ah OK, gotcha. Appreciate the insight ššæ
Shit, I’d watch the Euroleague if there was a European country I actually liked - I heard they’ve gotten exceptionally better talent wise within the last decade or so, so it does seem interesting.
Their formatting also is intriguing.
life goals
Lit
Heāll make a post considering it to get people to bet on the team on Kalshi
He should. He’s got money. That’s joy right there, priceless.
european shit š®āšØ
Itās all about money
He wants that money first!!!!!! He will play in greece when he’s 45 and only gets a minimum in the NBA. Money talks!!
Somebody put this on Kalshi real quick /s
Better than CHOKIC
He didnt even make playoffs