Yiannakis also takes on Olympiakos
Greece basketball coach Panayiotis Yiannakis has taken over the helm at Olympiakos in place of Israeli Pini Gershon, the struggling Piraeus team announced last night. The deal, it said, will run through the summer of 2010. Yiannakis, a monumental figure in Greek basketball, both as a player and coach, will also continue coaching the men’s national team, which he has successfully led since 2005, following a less impressive first tenure between 1996 and 1999. Gershon’s days at Olympiakos looked grim following successive defeats against PAOK in the domestic league last weekend and Montepaschi Siena in the Euroleague on Wednesday. «I always say that you pay the coach money to have somebody to blame in defeats,» Gershon, sensing his end, declared after the Euroleague defeat. Olympiakos scraped through to the competition’s second stage. «We have a great administration and if they think that there is someone who can do the job better than me, then that’s OK,» continued the Israeli who led Maccabi to two Euroleague titles before joining Olympiakos.
