Two days after he overtook legend Dimitris Diamantidis in the competition's all-time assists chart, there would be no better way for Kostas Sloukas to celebrate than by leading his beloved Olympiacos Piraeus to a home victory against archrival Panathinaikos OPAP Athens, the team that Diamantidis played his entire Turkish Airlines EuroLeague career for and now helps manage, in the Game of the Week on Thursday.
Game of the Week: All eyes on Sloukas in Greek Derby
Of course, this latest instalment of the Greek Derby is about far more than just one man. Olympiacos has plenty of potential weapons who could prove to be decisive, including February's EuroLeague MVP Sasha Vezenkov (13.4 points and 5.7 rebounds per game), the team's leading scorer Tyler Dorsey (13.5 ppg.) and long-serving veteran Kostas Papanikolaou (18 points in Tuesday's win at Zalgiris), while head coach Georgios Bartzokas will aim to ensure that collective defense shuts down the visitors.
On the other side of the ball, Panathinaikos boasts one of the league's most dominant big men in Georgios Papagiannis (10.0 points, 7.6 rebounds and 1.2 blocked shots per game), while Nemanja Nedovic (13.3 ppg.), Daryl Macon Jr (13.0 ppg.) and former Olympiacos star Ioannis Papapetrou (10.9 ppg.) are all more than capable of grabbing a game by the scruff of its neck.
Sloukas, though, deserves to be at the center of attention on Thursday at the Peace and Friendship Stadium, and he probably also deserves more recognition than he generally receives as one of the finest European basketball players of the modern era.
Having made his debut as a teenager with one appearance in the 2009-10 campaign, this is Sloukas's 12th season in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague. During that time he has been crowned continental champion on three occasions (2012 and 2013 with Olympiacos, 2017 with Fenerbahce); has amassed 307 EuroLeague appearances (10th all-time, with fellow Greek guard Nikos Zisis firmly in his sights at 310 appearances); has scored 2,732 points (17th all-time); and now has overhauled Diamantidis with 1,256 assists to sit in fifth place on the all-time list.
That's a pretty impressive set of stats, and Sloukas would love nothing more than to change the smallest one towards the end of May by adding a fourth EuroLeague title. That would see him his name join an elite list of just 15 players all-time, most recently joined by his former teammate Kyle Hines, to win more than three continental crowns.
And it could well happen. After a few fallow years that had seen Olympiacos fail to reach the playoffs since 2018 – finishing last season in 12th position with a 16-18 record – the Reds have seriously bounced back in the current campaign. Bartzokas's team is sitting in fourth place, and unless things badly unravel looks set to claim home-court advantage in the playoffs, which would be huge.
It's well-known that, historically, roughly three-quarters of the teams who benefit from home-court advantage subsequently advance to the Final Four. Those odds could prove to be even better for an Olympiacos team whose 11-1 home record is tied for the best this season.
So although there is obviously a lot of basketball to be played, signs are positive that Olympiacos could reach its first Final Four since 2017. In that scenario, two do-or-die games to get the trophy, would anyone really bet against the big-game pedigree of Olympiacos and its veteran players?
Sloukas, inevitably, will play a central part in that quest. Interestingly, though, his role has changed in recent months. Having started 33 of last season's 34 regular season games, in the current campaign he has started just once, appearing off the bench in the other 26 games.
That doesn't mean he has become any less important, however. Though he is no longer a starter, Sloukas is still averaging more than 24 minutes on the floor, second-highest in the team behind Vezenkov (29:50). And crucially, the new bench-boosting role that Sloukas has adopted this season means he is fresher to prove decisive in the crucial closing moments of tight games. That's something he has done to memorable effect on two occasions, with thrilling game-winning shots against Turkish titans Fenerbahce (Round 7) and Anadolu Efes (Round 26).
It's clear that Bartzokas has full faith in Sloukas and wants the ball in his hands when it matters the most. That respect has, of course, been built up over several years and this is their second spell working together. The first, between 2012 and 2014, saw them jointly become kings of Europe by taking the 2013 EuroLeague title, overcoming Real Madrid in the championship game in London.
Back then, Sloukas was still a young rising talent, early in his career and learning his trade with the guidance of not just Bartzokas but also the incomparable Vassilis Spanoulis. Nine years on, the 32-year-old Sloukas has matured and grown into one of the most established veterans of the competition, with a very impressive list of achievements already on his CV.
But he's not finished yet, and should he lead his team to a Greek derby victory on Thursday, it would be more proof that Sloukas can be one of the most important figures in the final stages of this Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season.