Men’s basketball roster still in flux
reece’s national basketball team coach Panayiotis Yiannakis will make his final decision about the team roster on August 10, the day the squad is due to settle at the Olympic Village and just five days before the team’s first clash, against Australia. Yiannakis has already pared the team down to 14 players whom he will subject this week to a final test, a tournament in Madrid, where Greece will face hosts Spain, Lithuania and Argentina. All three are medal contenders and their chances have improved since Serbia-Montenegro will be without its sharpshooting forward Peja Stojakovic. Yiannakis wants the remaining team members to compete hard among themselves for a place in the roster. The last player cut from the squad, 28-year-old guard Christos Hatzis, told reporters that he had not been treated fairly by Yiannakis. «My exclusion did not surprise me. I had understood by the way the coach had treated me that I was not a part of his plans,» Hatzis said, adding nonetheless that he hoped the team would get an Olympic medal. Hatzis was a starting guard for the Greek team that won the 1995 World Junior Championships, in Athens. Among his opponents at that tournament was Stephan Marbury, who will be part of the US team of NBA stars playing at the Games. Forward Dimitris Papanikolaou is the only member of that junior squad with a chance to make the Olympic team.
