Panagiotis Giannakis, Head Coach

Coach, tell us about your team's roster for the next Euroleague season, what changes you made and what improvements you expect to gain from those decisions?
“Like any team who has an owner that loves his team and wants to spend for the team, they expect to have a very good team. So we have tried with the players we’ve chosen to have a very good team with good chemistry and good character. So I think we know that it’s difficult with so many new players to have early results, but I think that with good character of the players we’re going to try to work every day with a lot of desire and discipline and to learn each other and to get quick results as a team. This year we’re going to try to have a very strong defensive team.”
How much can you learn from the preseason about your team? What signs do you look for now that will help when the Euroleague starts?
“Always when preparing the team we try to work on understanding each other. We have to think about how we can be a winning team. It’s nice sometimes to play a nice running and shooting style, but it’s different than understanding how to win games. So for me the most important thing in the preparation is to understand each other and to learn how to limit our opportunities to lose games. It’s important to have patience. This time is important for building ourselves for the season so that we can have very good results at the end.”
What are your goals going into the new Euroleague season?
“The Euroleague has some teams that in the last few years have the same coaches and some of the same players, so we are going to face two different types of teams. One is like CSKA and Panathinaikos that have the same coaches and most of the players are the same, so they have an easier time at the beginning, and some other teams have newer coaches and new players. So I expect very interesting teams because there are more teams this year that expect to do more. So I think there will be great games and very competitive games.”
What are your goals going into the new Euroleague season?
“We know that’s it’s a long season, but we have to take of every game. The players need to understand that they must be focused for every game and for every moment of the game. So we will always try to win and we want to beat everybody. But for this you have to build your confidence and build your concentration. That’s what’s most important and we’ll try for that first. And then we’ll see at the end what we have to do.”