You have only to read the arc of his career to know how much Vassilis Spanoulis wanted a Euroleague title. He worked his way up from his native Larissa to reach Athens in his teens and join Panathinaikos at age 23, also reaching the Euroleague for the first time. Although he played so well as to be voted All-Euroleague Second Team that first season, 2005-06, the Greens missed the Final Four. The next season, Spanoulis went to the NBA, only to watch from afar as the Greens took the Euroleague crown. He returned to Panathinaikos the following season, but again the team was knocked out short of the Final Four. Only four times all decade have the Greens missed the event, and the last two coincided with the first seasons that Spanoulis played for them. Earlier this month, however, all that would change as the Greens survived the closest Final Four in history and Spanoulis was voted MVP. With two trophies in his hands, Spanoulis had made up for a lot of lost opportunity in this, his first Final Four. "The first title is sweet," Spanoulis told Euroleague.net, "but after experiencing the joy and the pride, you just want to feel it again!"