Welcome back, basketball fans around the world. Once again, writing you all for the last time this Euroleague season, I am Kyle Hines, forward/center of the 2012 Euroleague champions, Olympiacos. Yes, you read that right! We did what many deemed unthinkable and impossible at the beginning of the season. We traveled to Istanbul, Turkey as the underdogs of the Final Four and left as THE CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!!

Wow, this season has been truly an amazing journey. As many of you know, at the beginning of the season Olympiacos was far from being considered a favorite to win the Euroleague title. We were called too young and inexperienced. They said we lacked the star power and big-name players to be considered serious contenders, that if we reached the Top 16, it should be considered a big success. We used this as motivation throughout the Euroleague season to continue to defy the naysayers and advance to where nobody thought it was possible for us to go.

I've now watched the finals game against CSKA a few times since we have won the championship. Everybody I have talked to has said that they thought it was one of the best games that they have ever seen - and not only in basketball! We were able to somehow come back from 19 points down and get the win. That game basically shows what has made our team special through the entire season. Our team's character and resilience has been the key to our success this year.

It still hasn't quite sunk in that we are the Euroleague champions. It has always been a goal of mine ¬– as I'm sure it is for many other players in Europe ¬– to win the Euroleague. I just didn't necessary think it would happen... more

Welcome Back to all the Turkish Airlines Euroleague and basketball fans around the world. Once again, I am Kyle Hines, forward/center for Olympiacos , writing you from beautiful Athens, Greece. After impatiently waiting for the past 30 days, it is finally………FINAL FOUR TIME!!!!!!! After all the hard and long practices and tough games that have followed us throughout this Euroleague season, it is finally time for my teammates and I travel to Istanbul, Turkey to compete for the Euroleague title.

When I last wrote on this blog, we had defeated Montepaschi Siena in the Euroleague playoffs to clinch a trip to the Euroleague Final Four. Since then we had almost one month to prepare to go to Istanbul. The first step in our team's preparation for the Final Four was the Greek League playoffs. We played both the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds of those playoffs. Even though we were clearly the favorites in both of those series, we wanted to use those games to help us to become better prepared for our matchup against Barcelona in the semifinal of the Final Four.

Barcelona has been the top team throughout this Euroleague season. They have one of the most experienced groups in all of the Euroleague and their core players have been together for many years. They have one of the best players in Euroleague, Juan Carlos Navarro, and a very strong and deep frontcourt. Coming into the game, they will be considered the favorites by many people, but to our team that doesn't mean anything. We are comfortable playing the role of underdogs and we all know that anything is possible one game.
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Welcome to all the Turkish Airlines Euroleague and basketball fans around the world. Once again, I am Kyle Hines, forward/center for Olympiacos, writing you from beautiful Athens, Greece. Yes, the underdogs are still alive!!!!!! It feels great to say that, in a couple of weeks, my team will be traveling to Istanbul, Turkey, for the Turkish Airlines Euroleague Final Four. As a team, we have been through many ups and downs and aside from the people in our locker room, nobody believed that Olympiacos would be one of the last four teams still standing in the Euroleague this season. For that reason, I feel that no other team deserved it more than us.

When I last left off in my last blog, we were getting ready to travel back home to Athens to face Montepaschi Siena for Games 3 and 4 of our playoffs series. Up to that point, we had played extremely well at home and only lost one game this entire season (CSKA) on our home court. So we were confident going in and excited to play in front of our home fans. The atmosphere was going to be intense as both games were already sold out, with many fans looking for revenge after Siena knocked Olympiacos out of the playoffs last season.

In Game 3, our team was able to put together a great defensive effort. It was probably the best defensive game we had all season. We held their team to only 30... more

Welcome to all the Turkish Airlines Euroleague and basketball fans around the world. Once again, I am Kyle Hines, forward/center for Olympiacos, writing you from beautiful (especially now) Athens, Greece. This is the most exciting time of the year……..PLAYOFF TIME!!!!!!!! The Turkish Euroleague Playoffs started last week for all teams. As a player and also a basketball fan, the playoffs is something that I've always look forward to. The games become more intense and the most memorable moments usually occur now.

This is my first experience participating in the Turkish Airlines Euroleague Playoffs, but it is something I've been looking forward to since I started my European playing career. I'm a big twitter guy (follow me @sirhines), and a year ago after watching a Euroleague playoff game, , I tweeted: "I dream of one day playing at that level." Now, that opportunity is finally here and I couldn't be more excited about it.

Our team is matched up against Montepaschi Siena from Italy. They are one of the most experienced teams in all of the Euroleague. More than half their team is 30 years or older and have played multiple Euroleague seasons compared to our team, which is probably the youngest and least experienced team left in the competition. We knew coming into the series that Siena would be the favored to win by most people¬ – and that we would be considered the underdogs. Despite our inexperience and our underdog status, we felt that we matched up very well with Siena. We both have high-scoring guards in Bo McCalebb and Vassilis Spanoulis, and we felt that our athleticism and high energy could cause them... more