Familiar faces and former teammates are set to fight for Turkish Airlines EuroLeague glory in Abu Dhabi
The many crossed paths of the 2025 Final Four participants
Final Four
5 Lesezeit
There is a lot of familiarity among the four teams that will challenge for the 2024-25 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague crown at the Final Four in Abu Dhabi. The rosters and coaching staffs of Olympiacos Piraeus, Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul and AS Monaco feature many players who have suited up for more than one of those teams and many former teammates who will square off against one another.
The coaches know each other well
Let's start with the four head coaches. AS Monaco head coach Vassilis Spanoulis won his last EuroLeague title in 2013 when he led Olympiacos to a 100-88 win over Real Madrid in the championship game. Spanoulis was then coached by current Olympiacos boss Georgios Bartzokas.
Spanoulis and current Fenerbahce head coach Saras Jasikevicius were teammates when Panathinaikos won the EuroLeague in 2009. That marked Saras's fourth championship and was Spanoulis's first of three. Both Spanoulis and Jasikevicius now have the chance to become the fourth person to win the EuroLeague as both a player and coach.
How does Panathinaikos head coach Ergin Ataman fit in? Ataman won the 2021 championship game against Barca, which was coached by Jasikevicius. In 2022, Anadolu Efes Istanbul downed Olympiacos 74-77 in the semifinals on a three-point shot by Vasilije Micic, which allowed Ataman's team to knock off Bartzokas's squad. Ataman has eliminated Fenerbahce twice in the semifinals, with Efes in 2019 and with Panathinaikos in 2024, stopping Saras from reaching another championship game.
Ataman has also coached one of Fenerbahce's top scorers. Errick McCollum and Ataman teamed up at Efes in the second part of the 2017-18 season. Before that, they led Galatasaray to the 2016 EuroCup championship, with the latter McCollum earning EuroCup MVP honors.
Sloukas reigns supreme
Panathinaikos star guard Kostas Sloukas is entering his 11th Final Four; he was also present in 2009, but did not appear in any game. Sloukas has led three of this year's Final Four teams to EuroLeague glory. He won back-to-back titles with Olympiacos in 2012 and 2013 and added crowns with Fenerbahce in 2017 and Panathinaikos last year. He is one of two players to win the EuroLeague with three different teams; Jasikevicius is the other. Sloukas is 8-2 in the EuroLeague semifinals, and his two losses came against Coach Ataman: against Efes with Fenerbahce in 2019 and against Olympiacos in 2022.
Two more players have won the EuroLeague with a potential Final Four opponent. Nick Calathes of Monaco won his only championship with Panathinaikos in 2011. Should Calathes win in Abu Dhabi, he would take the record for the longest gap between crowns, which is currently held by Dino Meneghin (1976 Varese, 1987 Milan). Luca Vildoza of Olympiacos lifted the trophy with Panathinaikos last season. If he wins this season, Vildoza would become the first player to win the EuroLeague with both Greek giants in consecutive seasons.
Sloukas is not the only player to have played for three of this year's Final Four teams. Calathes had two stints with Panathinaikos and was with Fenerbahce last season. Monaco center Georgios Papagiannis made it to the 2021-22 All-EuroLeague Second Team with the Greens and also played for Fenerbahce in the 2023-24 campaign. Amazingly, the 2017 EuroLeague Championship Game between Olympiacos and Fenerbahce featured players or coaches from all four teams present at the 2025 Final Four: Olympiacos (Kostas Papanikolaou, Nikola Milutinov), Panathinaikos (Sloukas, Ioannis Papapetrou), Fenerbahce (Khem Birch, Melih Mahmutoglu) and Monaco (Coach Spanoulis).
But wait, there's more
Daniel Theis of Monaco and Nicolo Melli of Fenerbahce were Brose Baskets Bamberg teammates for two seasons. Petr Cornelie of Monaco and Nigel Williams-Goss of Olympiacos helped Real Madrid win the EuroLeague in 2023. Panathinaikos center Omer Yurtseven made his professional debut with Fenerbahce as a teenager in 2014 and spent parts of two seasons with the club.
Moustapha Fall of Olympiacos played for Monaco during the 2014-15 season, when the club was in the French second division. Fall has teamed with Evan Fournier and Monaco's Cornelie, Terry Tarpey and Elie Okobo on the French national team. At EuroBasket 2022, Fall, Fournier, Tarpey and Okobo won silver medals. Before that, Fall, Fournier and Cornelie took silver medals at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Fall also teamed with Matthew Strazel of Monaco at LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne during the 2020-21 season.
Papanikolaou and Donatas Motiejunas played together in the NBA with the Houston Rockets. Likewise, Evan Fournier of Olympiacos, Birch and Panathinaikos guard Jerian Grant were teammates at the NBA's Orlando Magic.
Thomas Walkup of Olympiacos, Nigel Hayes-Davis of Fenerbahce and Marius Grigonis of Panathinaikos spent two seasons together with Zalgiris Kaunas, and were all coached by Jasikevicius in the 2019-20 campaign. Sertac Sanli of Fenerbahce and Alec Peters of Olympiacos were Efes teammates that same season. Peters went on to play for Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz in the 2021-22 season and teamed up with Vildoza. A year later, Peters shared the floor with Fenerbahce's Wade Baldwin in Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Many Panathinaikos players are connected to other teams and players, too. Like Sloukas, Papapetrou made his EuroLeague debut with Olympiacos and played there for five years. Mathias Lessort won the 2020-21 EuroCup with Monaco. Lorenzo Brown played one season with Fenerbahce and had Baldwin and Bonzie Colson as Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv teammates in each of the last two seasons. And in his only season with EA7 Emporio Armani Milan, Konstantinos Mitoglou shared the floor with Melli and Devon Hall.
So there will be many old friends at the games in Abu Dhabi, but when the Final Four tips off they will more importantly be basketball rivals.