Dimitris Diamantidis

Dimitris Diamantidis (alternate spelling: Dimitrios Diamantidis) (Greek: Δημήτρης Διαμαντίδης) (born May 6, 1980 in Kastoria, Greece) is a Greek professional basketball player for the Greek League and Euroleague team Panathinaikos Athens. Standing at 1.96 m (6'5"), Diamantidis mainly plays at the point guard position, but he also has the ability to play as a shooting guard, as well as to assume the small forward position, being utilized as a point forward. At the age of fourteen, he started his youth career with his home team in Kastoria, and he stayed there for five years, before being transferred to Iraklis in 1999. Since the summer of 2004, he plays for Panathinaikos Athens.

Diamantidis helped to lead Panathinaikos to three Euroleague championships in 2007, 2009, and 2011, earning the Final Four MVP Award twice, and being named Euroleague MVP in 2011. He also won seven consecutive Greek League (2005 to 2011) and six Greek Cup titles, five of which were consecutive (2005 to 2009). A three-time All-Euroleague First Team selection, he is the first recipient of the Euroleague Best Defender Award, which he won five times in a row from 2005 to 2009, and an additional one in 2011. Moreover, Diamantidis was voted to the Euroleague 2001-10 All-Decade Team. As a member of the Greek national team, he earned a EuroBasket title in 2005, as well as a FIBA World Championship silver medal in 2006, with Greece stunning the likes of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, and Carmelo Anthony in the tournament's semifinal.

On the basis of his achievements in Greek and European basketball, his pivotal role in the success of the Greek national team at the world stage, and his remarkable all-around skills, Diamantidis was named the Mister Europa European Player of the Year by the Italian sports magazine Superbasket in 2007, and is widely considered to be one of the most charismatic point guards the FIBA game has ever known, as well as one of its best defensive players. Kastoria's main indoor basketball arena was renamed "Dimitris Diamantidis" in his honor.