{"id":850861,"date":"2026-08-11T01:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T01:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/850861\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T01:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T01:08:17","slug":"panathinaikos-owner-says-he-attempted-to-lure-three-time-nba-mvp-nikola-jokic-to-europe-nikola-jokic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/850861\/","title":{"rendered":"Panathinaikos owner says he attempted to lure three-time NBA MVP Nikola Joki\u0107 to Europe | Nikola Joki\u0107"},"content":{"rendered":"

Panathinaikos Basketball Club owner Dimitrios Giannakopoulos says he attempted to lure three-time NBA MVP Nikola Joki\u0107<\/a> to his \u2060team for this coming \u2060season.<\/p>\n

Giannakopoulos, \u200bwhose net worth is estimated anywhere from $500m and $1.9bn, said in a Euro Insiders podcast released on Monday \u2060that he pitched the Denver Nuggets<\/a> on buying out Joki\u0107\u2019s contract and bringing him to Athens.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are going to say, \u2018OK, \u2060now he\u2019s joking,\u2019\u201d Giannakopoulos said. \u201cI did make a very serious proposal this year, \u200bboth to his team and \u200cto him. I \u200cgot a rejection. I know that he has one more year [on his] contract.\u201d<\/p>\n

Technically, \u200cJoki\u0107 has two years remaining. He\u2019s due to be paid $59m this season and $62.8m next season \u2013 but 2027-28 is Joki\u0107\u2019s option.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I asked, he had a certain contract running,\u201d Giannakopoulos said. \u201cThis was his last year. I tried to buy out his last year. They \u200cdidn\u2019t even, I mean, it took a few seconds to say, \u2018Who? Greece? Where? What? Bye,\u2019 from his team. But … let\u2019s \u200bwait until next year.\u201c<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old has spent all 11 of his NBA seasons with the Nuggets and led the charge to the franchise\u2019s only NBA championship in \u20602022-23.<\/p>\n

Joki\u0107 has averaged a triple-double each of the last two \u200bseasons. Oscar Robertson (1961-62) and \u200bRussell Westbrook (four times) are \u200bthe only other players who have averaged a triple-double across a season.<\/p>\n

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Last year \u200bin the EuroLeague, \u200cPanathinaikos posted a \u200b22-16 record \u200bto finish seventh out of 20 teams and lost to Valencia Basket in the first round of the playoffs. Former NBA players such as Jerian Grant, Juancho Hernangomez, Kendrick Nunn and Guerschon Yabusele are listed on their preseason roster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Panathinaikos Basketball Club owner Dimitrios Giannakopoulos says he attempted to lure three-time NBA MVP Nikola Joki\u0107 to his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":850862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-850861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}