Vassilis Spanoulis was born on the 7th of August 1982, and currently plays for Olympiacos Piraeus of the Greek Basket League and the Euroleague. Spanoulis is a 6 ft 4 in (193 cm) tall combo guard and he is nicknamed Kill Bill and V-Span. Spanoulis was named the Balkan Athlete of the Year in 2009, the All-Europe Player of the Year in 2012 and 2013, the Vatican’s World Athlete of the Year (Giuseppe Sciacca Award) in 2013 and the Euroleague MVP in 2013 as well. He has earned a record seven All-Euroleague Team selections. Spanoulis first played for Gymnastikos Larissas, and enjoyed a highly successful career start. His skills and performances earned him a transfer to Athens and Maroussi, where he won the Greek Basket League’s Best Young Player award in 2003. Following an impressive 2004\u201305 season, during which he helped to lead Maroussi to the Greek Basket League Finals, and the Eurocup quarterfinals, he moved to Panathinaikos, where he became one of European basketball’s major stars. In the 2005\u201306 Euroleague season, Spanoulis made his debut in impressive fashion, earning his first All-Euroleague Team selection as a rookie in the competition. After a stint in the NBA with the Houston Rockets during the 2006\u201307 season, he returned to Panathinaikos and helped to lead them to a Euroleague title in 2009, being voted as the Euroleague Final Four MVP. Spanoulis’ transfer to Olympiacos, in the summer of 2010, marked a new step in his career. Within a young and rebuilding team, Spanoulis not only led them to a Euroleague title run in 2012, but went on to achieve a historical repeat in 2013. In the process he gained another two Euroleague Final Four MVP awards, thus joining Toni Kuko\u010d as the only players in the history of European basketball to achieve that distinction on three occasions. Spanoulis played an instrumental role on the senior men’s Greek national team’s EuroBasket 2005 gold medal team. Most importantly, he was one of the main stars of Greece’s 2006 FIBA World Championship silver medal team, scoring 22 points in the memorable victory over Team USA (101\u201395) in the tournament’s semifinals. It was however, Greece’s bronze medal at the EuroBasket 2009, that emphasized Spanoulis’ leadership within an injury-plagued Greek national team, consequently earning an All-EuroBasket Team honor.
\nAwards and accomplishments
\nPro career
\n3x Euroleague champion: 2009, 2012, 2013
\n1x Panathinaikos: 2009
\n2x Olympiacos: 2012, 2013
\n6x Greek League champion: 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015
\n4x Panathinaikos: 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010
\n2x Olympiacos: 2012, 2015
\n4x Greek Cup champion: 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011
\n3x Panathinaikos: 2006, 2008, 2009
\n1x Olympiacos: 2011
\n1x Triple Crown champion: 2009 Panathinaikos
\n1x FIBA Intercontinental Cup champion: 2013 Olympiacos
\nGreek National Team
\n2000 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship:\u00a0 Bronze
\n2001 Mediterranean Games:\u00a0 Silver
\n2002 FIBA Europe Under-20 Championship:\u00a0 Gold
\nEuroBasket 2005:\u00a0 Gold
\n2006 Stankovi\u0107 Continental Champions’ Cup:\u00a0 Gold
\n2006 FIBA World Championship:\u00a0 Silver
\nEuroBasket 2009:\u00a0 Bronze
\n9x Acropolis Tournament champion: (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2015)
\nIndividual
\nEuroleague MVP: 2013
\n3\u00d7 Euroleague Final Four MVP: 2009, 2012, 2013
\nEuroleague Finals Top Scorer: 2013
\n3\u00d7 Euroleague MVP of the Month: February 2012, November 2012, October 2014
\n4\u00d7 Euroleague MVP of the Week: 2006 (2x – Regular Season Week 2 and Playoff Games 1 and 2), 2014 (2x – Regular Season Week 8 and Top 16 Week 1)
\n7\u00d7 All-Euroleague Team: 2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
\n3\u00d7 All-Euroleague Team First Team: 2012, 2013, 2015
\n4\u00d7 All-Euroleague Team Second Team: 2006, 2009, 2011, 2014
\nFIBA Intercontinental Cup MVP: 2013
\nGiuseppe Sciacca International Award for Sport (Vatican’s World Athlete of the Year): 2013
\n2\u00d7 All-Europe Player of the Year: 2012, 2013
\nBalkan Athlete of the Year: 2009
\nEuroBasket All-Tournament Team: 2009
\n2x Acropolis Tournament MVP: (2007, 2009)
\n2\u00d7 Greek League MVP: 2009, 2012
\n2\u00d7 Greek League Finals MVP: (2012, 2015)
\nGreek League Best Young Player: 2003
\nGreek League Most Improved Player: 2004
\n8\u00d7 All-Greek League Team: 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015
\n5\u00d7 Greek League assists leader: 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vassilis Spanoulis was born on the 7th of August 1982, and currently plays for Olympiacos Piraeus of the Greek Basket League and the Euroleague. Spanoulis is a 6 ft 4 in (193 cm) tall combo … Read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[94],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball-players","tag-94","infinite-scroll-item","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50","resize-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charityidols.com\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charityidols.com\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charityidols.com\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charityidols.com\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charityidols.com\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charityidols.com\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charityidols.com\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charityidols.com\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charityidols.com\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charityidols.com\/el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}