Rick Pitino recounted his deal with Panathinaikos BC: “The first time I hung up”

He was invited to Podcast in the US and recounted his agreement with the CDE, which brought him to Greece for two terms to the “greens” and one to the National Greek basketball team. As a Hall of Famer of American basketball, Rick Pitino was suddenly found in Greece, when he stayed out of the bench for a scandal at the University of Louisville, and he reported what preceded his decision to take the position of coach at Panathinaikos. The relevant quote of the statements Pitino “A week before Christmas a friend of mine called me and said ‘coach I talked to Chris Wallace, would you like to come to Panathinaikos to practice? ‘ And I said “what is this?” He told me he was in Euroleague, a famous team in Greece. They won six Euroleague championships. I said “I have never been to Greece and I don’t know anything about Euroleague”, so I hung up. A week later he called me back and said “you have 48 hours to decide”. My wife said “you have to go”. And I told her “can I go to Greece?” It was Christmas Eve, I had a flight to New York, and I had to catch the flight, coach Christmas night against CSKA Moscow. I said “Okay pack up and go”. And he said “you will pack, you will go, I will not go.” So I left, we won the game against CSKA, I had two great first years, I became a Federal coach for a short time, and I had a great time. I learned a different kind of basketball, it’s a different type of attack than we’re used to and I learned a lot, it was great for me.” For his collaboration with players: “Nick Calathes played for Billy Donovan, so he knew about me and I said ‘ listen, guys, you’ll run the same attacks, we’ll change a few things defensively. Now go play, but I want to see everyone play as hard as they can. So that I can evaluate you.” And they won the game, we took an excellent course, I traveled to places I’d never been before. From Barcelona, Madrid, Tel Aviv, Lithuania, Russia, Moscow, St Petersburg. Places that were perfect to see for the first time”. Pitino was also mentioned in the Louisville era, but also his new team in New York.