Angelos
Giannopoulos
stats

About me

« I am a modern small forward and a stretch four (power forward), which means that I am tall but can play also positions on the periphery, which makes me versatile. I play in the Luxembourgish semi-pro Sparta Bertrange in the TOTAL LEAGUE which is the 1st Division in Luxembourg. Even though I am quite tall, I can handle the ball well and shoot it from the outside very well. I can also give a lot of scoring opportunities to my teammates, thanks to my passing skills and my court vision. Due to my height I can also play in the post and use my body correctly against any defender. My big wingspan helps me get more rebounds and play better defense on the inside, while my good footwork makes it harder for guards to get past me. I am also very quick for a player of my size and my strength and athleticism make it even more difficult to guard me.»

My motivation

I am Angelos Giannopoulos, I started playing basketball for fun when I was 4 and as I was getting older my goal was to improve. When I was 11 years old, I started getting help from athletic coaches to get more fit and a year later I started attending camps and got a specific basketball trainer to improve my game. The more I was working, the better I got and at the age of 13, I decided that I wanted to be a professional player when I grow up.

Since my childhood, I have been setting goals and challenges for myself which I wanted to accomplish by a certain time. When I was playing in a category, I wanted to be able to dominate it and play minutes also for the category above. When that was not enough of a challenge, I started seeking for a more demanding one. Therefore, I was constantly changing teams in my young ages. I started playing as an average player for the team and became the most important after a few years. When everything seemed to be easy, I changed team hoping to find a new challenge.

At the age of 13, I saw for the first time the European Championship for young players. That’s when I got interested in playing for a national team and striving towards that. That was my next challenge. As a player in Luxembourg, I did not know how to be discovered by a coach but through some phone calls, I got invited for tryouts for the U15 Greek National team when I was 14. Two years later I was invited to try out for the national team again, this time for U16. A few months later, I played some friendly games in Greece and I was selected for the 16 players that would take part in the preparation for the European Championship.

In the start of the preparation, it was difficult to get to know all the guys and integrate myself. After 10 days, I felt a lot better being with the team and on the 20th of July 2019 I flew with the team to Baku for the European Olympic Youth Festival. After a successful tournament for me, I got selected to represent Greece in the European Championship in Udine.

Unfortunately, I left the tournament after 3 games with a fractured scaphoid. Even if I could not finish the tournament, I was very happy that I made it into the National team and that I accomplished my goal.

My next goal was to play for the men’s team in Sparta Bertrange, which I accomplished just a few months later, a week after I recovered from my wrist injury.

My goals for the future are to play at the highest level I can. My dream has always been to play for one of the biggest teams in Europe that play in the continent's biggest competitions like the Euroleague or the Basketball Champions League.