Nick Calathes will be an important part of the Greek NT this summer as Giannis Antetokounmpo and co. are preparing for the 2022 EuroBasket. Calathes spoke about his career in national team and his dream about representing his country in the Olympics.
“I’ve never played in the Olympics so it would be a dream to walk out with the Greek flag during the Opening Ceremony,” he said to gazzetta.gr. “I always see it on TV and I said, ‘That’s something on my bucket list as a player’ so if I did that, I’d be done.”
Calathes, 33, is expected to be one of the veteran leaders of the Greek NT going forward and he hopes to be able to play at least for two more years. Calathes, named one of the Greece captains recently by national team coach Dimitris Itoudis.
The FC Barcelona guard played at the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2014 in Spain, FIBA EuroBasket 2015 in Lille, 2016 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Turin and FIBA Basketball World Cup in China in 2019.
“It’s not about making shots. It’s easy to say, ‘Hopefully we’ll make shots.’ But for us, it’s about playing together and knowing what you want to do on the court,” he said on Greece NT goals ahead of EuroBasket.
“Obviously, you’re going to make shots one day, miss shots one day. If we hold a team on defense to a lower score, we’ll win.”
