Panathinaikos OPAP Athens finished the EuroLeague season with a 59-62 win against Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul. Big man Georgios Papagiannis did so well that he finished first in two main statistic categories.
Papagiannis was regular season rebounds, blocks king
Papagiannis was once again instrumental to Panathinaikos's success, finished the game against Fenerbahce with 14 points, 12 rebounds, 4 blocks and a PIR of 31. He finished the game with his eighth double-double this season, which allowed him to lock up first place on the 2021-22 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague rebounds list. Papagiannis averaged 8.2 rebounds this season, finishing ahead of Walter Tavares of Real Madrid (7.8 rpg.) and Nicolo Melli of AX Armani Exchange Milan (6.7 rpg.).
His 4 blocks allowed him to surpass Tavares in the ranking of shot-blockers, too. Papagiannis had 50 blocks in 29 games (1.7 bpg.) and Tavares rejected 49 shots in 30 games (1.6 bpg.). Last season, Papagiannis was 11th in rebounds at 5.4 per game and second in blocks (1.6 bpg.), right behind Tavares (1.8 bpg.). He had also hit 65.1% two-pointers, ranking 12th overall. Papagiannis's scoring average went up from 8.8 points last season to 10.4 in the current campaign.
At age 24, Papagiannis keeps improving every season and the sky seems to be the limit for him.