The Club Scene: Promitheas Patras

After rapid rice from Greece's fourth division to the top, Promitheas Patras continues to grow and strives to become a force domestically and on the European front.

There is a rich history of championship-caliber basketball in Greece led of course by Turkish Airlines EuroLeague stalwarts Panathinaikos OPAP Athens and Olympiacos Piraeus followed by the likes of AEK Athens and the Thessaloniki duo of PAOK and Aris all of whom have played in a EuroLeague Final Four. There is a new kid on the block looking to make a name for itself and judging by its maiden campaign in the 7DAYS EuroCup, Promitheas Patras has what it takes to get far.

Promitheas, located about 215 kilometers west of Athens in the city of Patras, is on the verge of making the EuroCup Quarterfinals. Head coach Makis Giatras's team has already racked up victories over well-known clubs such as Segafredo Virtus Bologna, MoraBanc Andorra, Umana Reyer Venice, EWE Baskets Oldenburg and ratiopharm Ulm, and it is 3-2 atop its Top 16 group with one round of games to play.

This is just Promitheas's second season on the European stage after reaching the Round of 16 in the Basketball Champions League last season. The club also reached the final of the Greek Cup for the first time this season by knocking off Peristeri in the semifinals, though it fell at the hands of AEK in the final.

Not bad for a club that was in Greece's fourth league Basket in 2014. Promitheas earned back-to-back-to-back promotions to climb to the A1 level in 2017 and then finished third in its first year in the top flight - which should almost be considered winning the championship considering the power of Panathinaikos and Olympiacos.

"If somebody would have told me that someday you would be in the first basketball league in Greece, I would have said you're mad, it's impossible," said Promitheas owner Evangelos Liolios, who purchased the club in 2005 after playing for it back in 1989 as an amateur. "The most important thing was not how many divisions we jumped each year but that from the third local division until now we are the same people and we have the same emotions that we had as basketball players in 1989. That's beautiful."

Liolios is a big basketball fan and he considers Promitheas to be another of his children. The father of four works as a pediatrician, but also owns the coffee company, Coffee Island, which has some 430 franchises around Greece as well as shops in Cyprus, London and Toronto. Liolios is a realist and understands that there is more than just having strong financial resources to growing a strong basketball franchise, a club needs a base upon which to build.

"It's very easy to have a very good professional team. It depends on how much money you spend," Liolios said. "But most important and most difficult is how good of an academy you have because you cannot just buy good under-16 and under-18 players. You have to spend not just money, but time in order to develop them. It's a very, very difficult thing."

Just like Giatris has a plan to beat some of Europe's biggest clubs, Liolios and Promitheas have a plan to establish themselves among those same clubs long term. The club started a youth academy in 2006 and developed a youth project called the Nous program.

"We provide all the athletes with the best tools to succeed in life and achieve all their own goals as far as not only being athletes but also being useful in society," said Athanasios Souflias, the Nous youth program director.

There are 500 kids between ages 6 and 18 in the academy as well as scholarships for the 28 top prospects around the country. Promitheas's youngsters also have the opportunity to train at a state-of-the-art youth facility; the club opened its new 2,500-square meter training center in September 2018 - after construction started in November 2017. There are three courts and a basement full of training equipment, which also looks into sports science and pushes multisport cross-training.

"We want to follow the latest research and are always trying to develop programs of our own in terms of protocols and algorithms that will better reveal the players' fatigue," said Panos Stavropoulos, the program’s performance coach and movement analyst. "We are constantly trying to be ahead of things to come. We are never satisfied. We are always hungry for more, for more technology assessments."

Promitheas has already been successful in developing young talents. The gem within the club is Lefteris Mantzoukas. The 2.07-meter forward has already appeared in five EuroCup games this season, but he made his Greek league debut on February 14, 2017, becoming at 14 years of age the second-youngest player to appear in a game in the country's top league since it became fully professional in 1992. Mantzoukas won't turn 17 until July.

Mantzoukas, who on May 24, 2017, became the youngest player to start a Greek League game, has already made history at the European youth level. At this season’s Euroleague Basketball Adidas Next Generation Tournament Munich, he scored 49 points against U18 ALBA Berlin to set the ANGT single-game scoring record - despite being only 16 in a U18 competition.

One key for Promitheas will be to keep Mantzoukas and not watch him get snapped up by the likes of Panathinaikos or Olympiacos. Promitheas management knows it needs him and more players like him to develop in their own system to legitimately challenge the likes of Greek basketball's superpowers and to become more well-known in their own right.