No Joshing Around

Prior to his transoceanic relocation, it seems Olympiacos' Josh Childress was already quite the worldly fellow. From a recent NY Times interview, I've learned that he and Jamal Sampson, who played at the University of Califonia at Berkeley, travel internationally every summer, to places like Brazil and Spain. One imagines he learned a thing or two about the quality of European basketball while in Spain.

Even the ardent Spanish fans, though, cannot compare to some of the Greek fans Josh is now experiencing. On Greece club basketball's strongest rivalry, Panathanaikos v. Olympiacos:

It’s to the point where if we have a home game, their fans can’t come. The same thing goes for our fans if we play there. I don’t know how long ago it was, but they were shooting flares to the other side and throwing firecrackers. After the games, they would organize places to meet and they would go brawl.

Childress isn't joshing around, either. Here's flare-filled proof from a 2006 championship game:



His experience, unbelievably, makes my Turkish one seem lame by comparison.

As I've pointed out before, Childress was drawn to European basketball because of its emphasis on a more team-oriented game. He's not expected to be the biggest block of cheese in the cupboard:

I’m not expected to come in and drop 30. They don’t want that. Me coming in and taking 20 shots a game is something that they really don’t want. It’s good, because it’s something that I don’t want to do. I’ve never been a volume shooter, I’d rather take the good shot than shoot to shoot.

He emphasized it's hard to score, period, because not only are FIBA games shorter (40 minutes compared to the NBA's 48) but:

It’s tougher to score here. There’s no defensive three seconds. They play zone. There’s all kinds of ways that make it tougher to score; the game is a lot more physical. It’s more of a team game. It’s a little more evenly spread. Like you [NY Times reporter] said, 15 points in 27 minutes is a good number.