The basketball career of Ioannis Papapetrou got a fairytale touch to it when Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens won the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague crown in Berlin to end the season.
Tribute to the Champs: Ioannis Papapetrou
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It is not often that a player wins the EuroLeague with his favorite club, and makes a significant contribution while doing so. That's exactly what happened with Ioannis Papapetrou. But his story did not always look like it would develop this way.
The 30-year-old forward, a former team captain who grew up a Panathinaikos fand as the son of a former club legend, returned to the Greens last summer for his second stint with the club. This season, however, things were far from ideal for Papapetrou who fought injuries for the better part of the season, made only one appearance in the first 22 rounds, and played in only three games before Round 27.
But with injuries and doubts finally behind him, and after getting some playing time during the final stretch of the regular season, Papapetrou started to display some of the best basketball we have seen from him in recent years in what appeared to be the club's most important games in more than a decade.
After a brief appearance in the playoff series opener against Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv, Papapetrou played more than 28 minutes per game in the last four games of the series and in those averaged 12.5 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.0 assists.
Suddenly Papapaterou became an instrumental part of what Panathinaikos does on both ends of the floor and that continued at the Final Four. In Berlin, he was the team's fourth-best scorer with 9 points and also collected 3 rebounds and 2 assists in the semis against Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul. Then two days later, Papapetrou contributed 4 points in 18 minutes of action in the championship game win against Real Madrid.
It was the third championship game appearance of his career in his 11th season in the competition - and fifth with Panathinaikos. And now, Papapetrou can finally call himself a EuroLeague champion.