Coach Kill Bill: Behind Vassilis Spanoulis' promising rookie season with Peristeri / News - Basketnews.com

BasketNews takes a look at Vassilis Spanoulis' debut season as a head coach, focusing on the playing style he tried to deploy at Peristeri. The EuroLeague legend showed he has some of the makings of a great tactician, but the next season will reveal more about his potential.

Credit: FIBA Media Credit FIBA Media

Quite often, sports media tend to identify a team with its coach. Usually, this is indicated by a reference to both names. In Greece, almost throughout the entire 2022-23 campaign, Peristeri Athens were never mentioned in isolation from their coach. The team was always called 'Vassilis Spanoulis' Peristeri.'

Perhaps never before in the modern history of Greek basketball has a coach recorded as many references - if not more - as the team he guides. But that was to be expected since a personality like Spanoulis took over the reins of a historic club, which had not been considered a force to be reckoned with in the Greek league for years.

However, everything changed once the team from the western side of Athens formalized its partnership with the EuroLeague legend.

Peristeri, a club deprived of much visibility for several years, suddenly came to the fore. At the same time, by hiring Spanoulis, the club was eager to grant every wish of the newly-appointed coach.

Spanoulis was flanked by a staff of his choice under the supervision of the club's general manager and president, Giorgos Pantazopoulos. Due to the fact that Spanoulis lacked a coaching license, his assistant Panagiotis Vassilopoulos was the officially registered head coach in every game, while Savvas Kamberidis, Kostas Charalampidis, and Dusan Vukcevic were sitting next to him.

Credit FIBA Media

It is no coincidence that Spanoulis' signature opened doors for Peristeri that would have otherwise remained closed:

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