March 24, 2011

At guard, Vassilis Spanoulis made the almost unprecedented move across town to Olympiakos from its hated rival Panathinaikos, which no doubt polarised a lot of people. His presence has been a significant addition to the team; it has allowed Milos Teodosic to play mostly in the off-guard role that is more suited to him, and also further reduces the workload on Theo Papaloukas. Papaloukas is as effective in pick-and-roll situations as he as ever been, but he's also even slower than ever, and has also completely lost his jumpshot this season - split between Euroleague and Greek A1 play, he has shot only 6 for 53 from three point range. He is, by this time, a limited player, who knows what to do, but who doesn't have the speed to do much of it any more.

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April 12, 2010

- Theo Papaloukas

You really ought to know who Theo Papaloukas is. He's the 6'7 Greek point guard machine. Still with Olypmiakos, and currently the second highest paid player in Europe, Papaloukas is averaging 6.1 points, 3.7 assists and 2.4 assists in 21 minutes per game in the Greek league (as well as 58% shooting), and 7.0/5.2 on 54% shooting in 23 minutes per game in the Euroleague. If those numbers don't overwhelm you, then that's a demonstration of how numbers can lie. And it also doesn't tell the story of how good the other half of Olympiakos's point guard tandem, Milos Teodosic, is.

Their third point guard, former Ohio State player Scoonie Penn, has totalled only 22 points and 7 assists in 211 minutes. I realise elite European teams are convinced of the virtues of playing three point guards every night, but may I suggest that it's not what Olympiakos need right now.

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