Why did Nikos Galis never play for the Boston Celtics?

[Psileas]

What's the sad story you were talking about?

EDIT: Talking about deaths: Is Bob Morse (the Varese legend) dead? Some friend told me so, but I haven't found any info to confirm this.

[gsafier]

http://www.geocities.com/nikosgalis/stats.html

(It has some mistakes , but the 1st years' stats are correct, except maybe in 1980)

In Greece he scored

1980: 692 in 19 games (other sources say 742 in 26), not sure which is correct.
1981: 1143 in 26
1982: 828 in 22
1983: 869 in 24 (missed 2 due to suspension).

As far as Europe goes, I based my numbers only on books I've read: In 1980, he wasn't allowed to play. In 1981, he played 6 games and had 2 50+ point games, the second against Spencer Haywood's Caserta. In 1982, he played 6 games and had 42 and 48 against Limoges. In 1983 he played 4 games and one of them was a 42-point game against Roma and Larry Wright (played for the NBA Champions, Bullets).

I didn't know that. I remembered Galis as a shoot-first-and-pass-never player.
But if he put up these stats (and apparently could pass to) then too bad for the Celtics, he would have made a great instant offence from the bench.

Thinking about it Galis could be one of the best 3 who never played in the NBA (together with Oscar Schmidt and Deja Bodiroga).

[elementally morale]

I didn't know that. I remembered Galis as a shoot-first-and-pass-never player.

Same here. He could pass if he tried, but he actually never tried, not even when triple-teamed. I've never seen anyone that selfish.

[Psileas]

Thinking about it Galis could be one of the best 3 who never played in the NBA (together with Oscar Schmidt and Deja Bodiroga).

Yeah, and among the older guys, I also think Sergei Belov could have some success, along with Krezimir Cosic (who was drafted by the Lakers, I think). Cosic was really smart, like a previous generation's Divac. But he wouldn't play much for Kareem's Lakers obviously.
And finally, I want to mention Drazen Dalipagic. He made some practices with the Celtics and his shooting touch impressed Red Auerbach so much that he introduced him to John Havlicek and presented him as his successor! I don't know how well he would have fared, but he didn't play for a simple reason: If he became professional, he'd lose the right to play for Yugoslavia National Team (according to the FIBA rules back then).

Same here. He could pass if he tried, but he actually never tried, not even when triple-teamed. I've never seen anyone that selfish.

Not even #24?

[elementally morale]

Not even #24?

Kobe in his worst quarters is like Gallis was his whole life. But Gallis is even more like a hyperbole of Iverson on his worst days.

[Psileas]

Kobe in his worst quarters is like Gallis was his whole life. But Gallis is even more like a hyperbole of Iverson on his worst days.

I found his FG numbers in the Greek Championship from 1986-87 and on (before then, they weren't available). The 1st number represents 2-pointers, the 2nd 3-pointers and the number in parenthesis is games played:

1987: 277-395, 12-28 (18)
1988: 253-401, 3-13 (18)
1989: 227-373, 15-35 (17)
1990: 334-496, 9-31 (22)
1991: 286-431, 14-29 (26)
1992: 130-206, 16-33 (15)
1993: 210-352, 6-18 (26)
1994: 207-340, 5-17 (26)
1995: 3-3, 0-0 (1)

The NBA is obviously a much different level, but Iverson never was among the most efficient scorers in the game. Galis was always among the FG% (and FT%) leaders. So, they're not really analogous.

[elementally morale]

I meant the number of shots compared to his teammates' # of shots. Not the efficiency.

[artificial]

Do you know what happened to Tkatchenko later on? Sad story.

I'm curious on what happened. Did a quick google but apparently Tkatchenko is a pretty common last name, even in basketball. And for some reason it even gave me images of melo when image searching "Tkatchenko basketball".

[Psileas]

His name was Vladimir.
I'm not sure what Morale had in mind.

[Nikos1982]

Psileas

Do you have ARIS Team Stats during the Galis years by any chance? Like Team PPG, %'s etc...?

I can't seem to find any stats on Greek League history, even the ones you posted I cannot seem to locate.

Any ideas?

[Lakas Fan Yo]

Psileas

Do you have ARIS Team Stats during the Galis years by any chance? Like Team PPG, %'s etc...?

I can't seem to find any stats on Greek League history, even the ones you posted I cannot seem to locate.

Any ideas?

I know Galis was averaging around 37-40 points per game during his prime years. That's really something since the games are 40 minutes.

[Nikos1982]

Year PPG 2ptFG% FG% FG Attempts Per Game
1987 39.7 0.701 .683 23.5
1988 37.4 0.6300 .618 23
1989 37.7 0.608 .593 24
1990 38.8 0.673 0.651 23.95
1991 35.3 0.663 0.652 17.69
1992 32.1 0.631 0.611 15.93

Yeah these were his PPG while at Aris during the listed seasons.

I just can't seem to find what Areis Team PPG for these and surrounding seasons when Galis played for them.

At Seton Hall his Senior year he averaged 27.5ppg on 57% shooting, while his team only averaged 77.5ppg.

That's nearly 36% of his teams total PPG! Not to mention the rest of his team shot 43% combined without factoring in his shooting percentage.

I sort of want to see if he was as dominant at Aris as he was Seton Hall. I bet he was probably a little bit more dominant, but I want to know statistically how much.

[Nikos1982]

I checked most of Goggle and can't seem to find any other meaningful stats other than these.

It does seem the competition was weak in the early 80's, but even as it got better Galis always put up great numbers efficiently. Even against excellent International competition like 1987 and 1989. It seems he did better against International Teams then against Euroleague teams -- but it could be coincidence. Not like the Euroleague playoffs and Final four in his days were played in terms of best of 5 or 7 series.

[Lakas Fan Yo]

I checked most of Goggle and can't seem to find any other meaningful stats other than these.

It does seem the competition was weak in the early 80's, but even as it got better Galis always put up great numbers efficiently. Even against excellent International competition like 1987 and 1989. It seems he did better against International Teams then against Euroleague teams -- but it could be coincidence. Not like the Euroleague playoffs and Final four in his days were played in terms of best of 5 or 7 series.

The Greek League was the best domestic league in Europe during the era when Galis played in Panathinaikos. And even then in his mid 30s he put up about 12-15 points per game more than Dominique Wilkins did playing at the same team, and around the same age and era, when the league was the best domestic one in Europe.

And NBA fans always make the claim the Wilkins was "completely washed up" and "could no longer play in the NBA" when he played with Panathinaikos. That's not true because after he left Panathinaikos he averaged 18 points per game in the NBA. And Galis was averaging a lot more points in Greece than Wilkins was.

[Nikos1982]

The Greek League was the best domestic league in Europe during the era when Galis played in Panathinaikos. And even then in his mid 30s he put up about 12-15 points per game more than Dominique Wilkins did playing at the same team, and around the same age and era, when the league was the best domestic one in Europe.

And NBA fans always make the claim the Wilkins was "completely washed up" and "could no longer play in the NBA" when he played with Panathinaikos. That's not true because after he left Panathinaikos he averaged 18 points per game in the NBA. And Galis was averaging a lot more points in Greece than Wilkins was.

Which year was this?

http://www.geocities.com/nikosgalis/pao1.html

1992-1993: 21.8ppg

1993-1994: 18,8ppg

In 1993-1994 season, he was once again the tournaments top scorer, averaging 23,9 ppg and also was first in passing, dishing 5,9 assists per game. We led Panathinaikos in in the final four, that was meant to be his last one, where he scored 8 points against Olympiacos in a bad night for him and his team, and 30 points against Barcelona, in the third place game. Galis' stats in Europe with Panathinaikos: 1993-1994: Games 19, Points 454, ppg 23,9