Kostas Sloukas continues making history

The Panathinaikos guard is in select company with his achievements at the Final Four

Kostas Sloukas of Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens already belongs to the golden pages of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague record books. By making it to his eighth championship game, Sloukas has done something that no player has achieved since the late 1970s.

Sloukas has played for the title with Olympiacos Piraeus in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2023 and with Fenerbahce Istanbul in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Entering this season, Sloukas was tied with Matjaz Smodis for the most championship game appearances of the current century with seven. Smodis made two with Virtus Bologna (2001, 2002), another with Fortitudo Bologna (2004) and four with CSKA Moscow (2006, 2007, 2008, 2009). Rudy Fernandez and Sergio Llull will also be playing their respective seventh championship games with Real Madrid on Sunday.

You have to go way back to find players with at least eight championship game appearances; most of them are from Pallacanestro Varese, which reached 10 consecutive European Cup finals from 1970 to 1979. Dino Meneghin leads the list with 13 championship game appearances - 10 with Varese and three with Olimpia Milan. Only Aldo Ossola (10) and Clifford Luyk (9) have been to more top-tier championship games since the introduction of pan-European competitions in 1958.

Sloukas has a golden chance to win the EuroLeague title with three different teams. He previously lifted the trophy with Olympiacos (2012, 2013) and Fenerbahce (2017). Sarunas Jasikevicius is the only other player to win the EuroLeague with three different teams: FC Barcelona (2003), Maccabi Tel Aviv (2004, 2005) and Panathinaikos (2009).

Sloukas can also become the 17th player ever to win four or more EuroLeague titles. Only two players have won four titles in the 21st century: Jasikevicius and Kyle Hines, who was Sloukas's Olympiacos teammate in 2012 and 2013, and won it again with CSKA in 2016 and 2019.

From a statistical perspective, Sloukas is also cementing his status among the greats. He is ranked second in free throws, third in assists, fifth in PIR and seventh in scoring among all players in Final Four games this century. With 49 free throws, Sloukas is 10 behind Nando De Colo for the most in Final Four history. His 64 assists trail only two of his opponents tonight, Sergio Llull (70) and Sergio Rodriguez (74). With PIR, he has 172 and needs 17 to catch Theo Papaloukas for fourth. And in points scored, Sloukas has 167, but with 13 points would leapfrog Juan Carlos Navarro, Langdon and De Colo into fourth place.

At age 34, Sloukas is in his first season with Panathinaikos. He signed a three-year deal, which gives him a chance to keep adding more trophies and milestones to his already outstanding career.