Nikos Galis (inducted 2017)
We’ve covered Nikos “Nick” Galis before here. Even now, a few years later, he is considered to be the best player in all of Greek history.
Galis is a unique player on this list for a few different reasons. First, he was born in the states. Galis was born in New Jersey to two Greek immigrants in 1957. Another reason is because Galis is the only player on the list to never play in an Olympic game, probably due to the fact that he would’ve needed to play with the American national team, and nobody in America was aware of him during his career.
The final reason that Galis is unique to this list is that he is the only player with a wealth of information on him, that is, so much as you don’t care about his stats after college. There is a little bit of information on his stats in the Euroleague, but they are few and far between.
Galis played for four seasons with Seton Hall University while in college. There, he was able to average 15 points, one steal, and three assists a game, while shooting at a clip of .500. These numbers seem low, however Galis only averaged 16 minutes and started in two games in his Freshman season. After his graduation in 1979, Galis signed up for the NBA Draft, and he was drafted by the Boston Celtics. However, Red Auerbach would fail to sign him; something which he later called “…the biggest mistake of my career”.
Instead of going to the NBA, Galis would sign with Aris in Greece, where he stayed for 13 of his 16 FIBA seasons. Over the course of his career, Galis’ highest scoring average would be 44 points per game, and he would average 33 points a game and just 22 games a season. Galis would be a four-time leading Eurobasket scorer, and would win gold and silver in the Eurobasket Championship. In 2007, Galis would be inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame.