Career As A Head Coach
Unconventionally, the very next year after he retired from the Greek national team, Giannakis started his coaching career as the head coach of the Greek National Team in 1997. He stayed the head coach of the national team for 2 years, leading the team to a 4th place finish at the EuroBasket 1997, and a 4th place finish at the 1998 FIBA World Championship.
He then moved to the professional club level, and coached Panionios, until 2002, when he was then named the head coach of Maroussi. He stayed with Maroussi until 2006, having taken over the team in relative obscurity and having turned it into the 3rd most prominent team in the Greek League, along with the help of his star point guard Vassilis Spanoulis, whose playing style and player attributes were often compared to Giannakis'.
He returned to coach the national team in 2004, for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, where he led the Greek team to a 5th place finish. The next year, under his coaching, Greece won the EuroBasket 2005 competition for the second time in its history. After 2006, he no longer simultaneously coached on the professional club level and national team level, as he decided to focus his full attention on the Greek national team only. In 2006, he coached the national team of Greece to a second place finish at the 2006 FIBA World Championship. In the World Championship's semi-final game, held on September 1, 2006, Giannakis' Greek team beat the heavily favored United States national basketball team for the first time, by a score of 101-95.
On the 3rd of February 2008, Giannakis signed on to coach the Euroleague power Olympiacos, with a 2-and-a-half year contract, at an annual salary of €1.1 million euros net income. Giannakis also made an additional annual salary of €1.2 million euros net income while coaching the Greek national basketball team. In December 2008, he ended his tenure as the head coach of Greece's national team and was succeeded by Jonas Kazlauskas. In June 2010, Olympiacos announced that Giannakis wouldn't coach the team next season. During the two and a half year period, Giannakis guided the team to its first trophy in eight years, winning the 2010 Greek Cup, and he also led the team to two consecutive Euroleague Final Fours (in one of them the team reached the Euroleague Final), for the first time since 1998, and to three consecutive Greek League finals.
Read more about this topic: Panagiotis Giannakis
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