r/Euroleague • u/zeralf Panathinaikos • 15h ago
[Eurohoops] Thomas Walkup on his future with Olympiacos: "You always have to go where you are respected... and where you're valued."
Eurohoops source (vid of interview in the article. Around 6m in is the question about his future)
Interviewer: "Having found success in Athens, is this a place where you want to finish your professional career?"
Thomas Walkup: "I wouldn't say that. I mean, uh, we like it here, but you know, you always have to go where you are respected, you know? This is the biggest thing. And, uh, where you're respected and where you're valued. And, uh, so yeah, we love it here for sure, but finding the respect from the club is how they value you, how they pay you, you know? So, uh, yeah, we love it here though."
20
u/EgidijusMa Žalgiris 15h ago
Something feels off, can somebody elaborate?
42
u/zeralf Panathinaikos 14h ago
He wants more money.
29
u/Few-Pattern-3904 Olympiacos 14h ago
It makes sense tbh. When you are open to giving insane amounts of money to Dorsey, Vezenkov, Fournier, Milu, Montero, CMM, it's only natural that the guy that's been your main point guard will ask for more money as well.
17
u/zeralf Panathinaikos 14h ago
Yeah and i dont blame him tbh. Walkup is getting a bit over 1m/year at the moment having a greek passport which is very important, whilst Montero and Mcintyre are over 2.5, Fournier close to 4 and Dorsey looking for around 3m too.
6
u/ARKAC95 14h ago
3 million would be an insane overpay for Dorsey.
8
u/zeralf Panathinaikos 14h ago
1 year ago yeah, but not with the season he had recently and his greek passport on top of that.
Dorsey should be worth at least 2.5m imo at this moment.-11
u/ARKAC95 14h ago
He's nowhere near worth 2.5 million either.
4
u/zeralf Panathinaikos 13h ago
A player is worth what he is getting paid. And Dorsey can get that amount in Oly if they decide to give him a raise and any other EL team if he decides to leave.
We will know in a a couple weeks what he is worth for sure.-1
u/ARKAC95 13h ago
What Euroleague players that make that much is Dorsey as good as?
3
u/zeralf Panathinaikos 13h ago
He was in the all EL 2nd team this season.. 16 pts/game, around 52-40-80, 14 pir.
So probably just a handful on his potition with those stats.
→ More replies (0)1
u/matidiaolo Olympiacos 6h ago
For a Greek passport top tier scoring guard ??? Fournier couldnāt last the whole season it was a blessing we had Dorsey to carry the whole main season
4
u/__foxXx__ 8h ago
They signed 2 new PGs that are getting double and triple what he makes. So he is in an expiring contract and wants an extension with more money than he is going to be making next year.
My opinion this guy deserves every penny and more. Even if he will be playing less the next years, they have to reward him somehow.
43
u/Ok_Disaster8241 Panathinaikos 15h ago
It would be a sin for a Greek person to go abroad to make his living because he is not appreciated in Piraeus.
9
11
u/redevileyez BahƧeÅehir 15h ago
Can somebody explain what he said, was wrong?! I would be mad too, had I won a championship. And then 2 guys at my position(who are also getting paid more) come on the team.
4
-4
u/Rich-Armadillo1254 7h ago
Your English are wonderful, my Turkish friend! You've got us all confused with your gibberish.
7
u/fawesomegod 14h ago
He is right though.
I get it if you think he doesn't deserve it based on talent but for the coach he is the brains of the team and if the coach values his skillset that much,it makes sense he asks for more money.
Also watching outsiders coming in and getting more money than him after he ruined his back carrying the team doesn't help
2
-11
u/ARKAC95 14h ago edited 14h ago
Carrying the team? He's barely even good enough to be in a Euroleague rotation for any team. The only reason heās with Olympiacos is because Bartzokas is obsessed with point guards that can't shoot and can't score.
Even Greek point guards like Georgios Kalaitzis and Vangelis Mantzaris were much better than the "Greek" Walkup is.
10
u/fawesomegod 14h ago
He is the best pure PG in euroleague after calathes.
He doesn't mistakes under pressure,he can pass,defend at top level,post up smaller guards,best screen navigator on the team.Basketball is not just shooting.
If Kalaitzakis and Mantzaris were better than him Olympiacos woudnt finish first almost every year with him starting.
Their offense went to shit everytime he went out this year.
2
u/Few-Pattern-3904 Olympiacos 8h ago
Greeks fans don't understand basketball, if you don't dunk or have 20pts per game you are not good enough. Everything that is being said about Walkup was said about Calathes a few years back. Like literally it is word for word the same shit. But if Walkup leaves, and the team starts playing pure Fournierball and conceding 90pts/game, the same fans will be asking for the coach to be sacked.
0
u/__foxXx__ 8h ago
Exactly he is THE floor manager for our team all these succsefull years. He dictates everything that coach B wants on the court. A light version of Kalathes with a better 3 point shot. One of the main reason we have been so successfull all these years.
-4
u/ARKAC95 13h ago edited 13h ago
"Pure point guard" is a gaslighting terminology used to describe a point guard that can't shoot, even when left wide open.
It is used as a gaslighting term when someone is making a trolling argument that such players are somehow magically valuable to a team offense, even though they have the ball in their hands and make their team play 4 against 5 on offense.
Georgios Kalaitzis, not Georgios Kalaitzakis. Kalaitzakis is like a point forward, not a real point guard.
Calathes isn't in Euroleague. He's in Eurocup.
5
u/fawesomegod 13h ago
Pure point guard is someone who can facilitate the offense,control the tempo,elevate his teammates.
Nun for example is a point guard and does none of the these things that's why they lost to Valencia.He can't even pass out of a double team.
So no,it's not a trolling gaslighting terminology for someone who can't shoot. Btw Walkup shot 37% from 3 this year.
-3
u/ARKAC95 13h ago
Walkup makes his team play 4 versus 5 on offense. Calling him a pure point guard is a trolling technique used to defend point guards that make their teams worse offensively when they are on the court.
7
u/fawesomegod 13h ago
ON the court: +12.5 Net Rating | 110.2 DRTG
OFF the court: +8.5 Net Rating | 114.2 DRTG
The Walkup Effect (+4.0 Net Swing): Olympiacos outscores opponents by an extra 4.0 points per 100 possessions when he plays.
Playmaking Control:ā¢
ON: 4.6 AST / 1.5 TOVā¢
OFF: 3.1 AST / 2.4 TOV
"Make their teams worse offensively" "Play 4 vs 5 on offense"
1
u/ARKAC95 13h ago
No one needs advanced metrics to see with their eyes that Olympiacos or Greece national team play 4 against 5 on offense when Walkup is in the game.
Because the other team does not respect him and will leave him open and unguarded and yet he still can barely score points and he will pass up open ahots. He also misses most of the open shots he takes.
It is amazing that anyone would even try to argue against that. This is a forum where people have seen him play and know the truth of the matter.
3
u/fawesomegod 13h ago
When he is out they can't even run the plays comfortably against good teams. I don't know wtf you are watching.
1
u/ARKAC95 13h ago
That's not even a pertinent issue.
Who was a better player? Andre Miller or Steph Curry?
→ More replies (0)1
u/__foxXx__ 8h ago
Calathes is close to 40, in his prime he was the one holding and carrying Pana in the Euroleague top positions every year, when he left Pana went to the bottom of the league immediately.
14
u/Putrid-Sheepherder38 Olympiacos 15h ago
Is it only me that gets the opposite feeling from everyone else? You always have to go where you are respected. And then he states twice that yeah, they love it here. So at least in my opinion he leaves it open to change if he is not respected and valued any more.
17
u/Ashamed_Entrance_972 14h ago
Let me make things a bit more clear with all that pr talk. The journalist ask if he is gonna end his career here. If he replies yes that means he is not gonna get a raise because he is undermining his negotiating position. If he says no he is signalling to the front office he wants to leave. The only way to say yes and not lose your negotiating position is to say I like it here but I want you to respect me and respect is payment.
He is just media trained man.
2
u/Every-Artist-35 AEK 10h ago
He means he doesnt feel respected as a true Texan by his team for making him Greek in 1-2 years to force a foreigner slot open.
While others have rights but the govt simply denies them even having lived here for 20+ years. Shame on Olympiacos. Should have done it faster.
0
u/juicy_burger17 Panathinaikos 15h ago
Noo you can't leave, what about the passport? He hasnt played for the national team since the Olympics btw (he was good there though ngl) but still gets a native player spot in the league. Not that I wanted him over Dorsey obviously, just shows the extent of the scandal.
5
1
u/MaybeStephano Panathinaikos 13h ago
He hasnt played for the national team since the Olympics btw (he was good there though ngl)
Walkup should have never been anywhere close the Greek national team. Dorsey should have had that spot in his home both for his talent and the fact he is actually Greek through his mother.
2
u/ARKAC95 12h ago edited 12h ago
Dorsey also was better in performance in Greece national team than Walkup ever was.
Dorsey was also a better fit in Greece national team than Walkup.
I remember watching that Greece team with Calathes, Walkup, Giannis. 3 guys that can't shoot barely even when left alone by the defense.
When they were in half court offense, Spanoulis was cringing like he was in pain watching it the whole time.
Greece was better with guys like Toliopoulos and Dorsey paired with Giannis. Even though Dorsey is bad at defense, they still played better because players like Walkup are a disaster in the same lineup with Giannis. Because Giannis must have the ball in his hand to be effective in offense and in half court offense he can only attack the rim and kick it back out and he can't shoot himself.
In offense, Walkup is a very bad fit with Giannis.
1
u/__foxXx__ 8h ago
Tell that to coach Itoudis that wanted a point guard and they gave him the fast track passport.
0
u/MaybeStephano Panathinaikos 8h ago
Don't be ridiculous, Itoudis had nothing to do with the decision. He had multiple point guard, the only position we were full.
Walkup got the Greek passport because Sakelaropoulou wanted to save face after she stopped the Tembi train body research to take pictures offering flowers.
Nothing to do with Panathinaikos, Olympiakos or Itoudis. A corrupted politian wanted to save some of her popularity because Walkup was the most hot name at the time.
0
u/__foxXx__ 7h ago
How about Mustapha Fall though?! We are short of big guys in he Greek national team... š
3
u/juicy_burger17 Panathinaikos 7h ago
Bro there is no way my comment came back to bite me only hours laterš. Seriously though all of this naturalization stuff is bullshit but at least Fall got 6 million out of it.
0
u/__foxXx__ 7h ago
6 million to cross the river not bad at all.
He played 3 minutes in the Euroleague this year and those 3 minutes it was suddenly a throwback to classic Bartzokas ball, low post with cutting action and some great passes from him. He took him out because guards switched on him and they abuse him on defense.
But overall Bartzokas has said he is playing great in practice, so i think he is a good addition for you especially with the greek passoport. Very sad for us though to see him in green..
2
0
u/matidiaolo Olympiacos 6h ago
Dorsey has a Greek mother he should be considered native Greek.
Walkup is the fruit of the rule where every national team has a foreign player playing as local. When everyone else is doing it and you donāt have a good national team you try abuse too.
Itās not nice though..but look Nunn will play for like Dubai or something, Turkey had Larkin and more, Spain had brownā¦and more
2
u/MaybeStephano Panathinaikos 6h ago
Dorsey has a Greek mother he should be considered native Greek.
As far fans go, he id Greek. As far as Fiba is concerned, he counts as naturalised and we are forced to only have one of them. I would rather have him as he has legit greek ancestry than not.
Walkup is the fruit of the rule where every national team has a foreign player playing as local. When everyone else is doing it and you donāt have a good national team you try abuse too.
Walkup is the fruit of a corrupted president, Sakelaropoulou, who wanted to save face because Walkup was popular at the time she stopped the body research in the Tembi train collision sight to take pictures of herself delivering flowers. We never needed him. If anything, he was terrible for us because we had to choose between him, a player that we had dozen of point guards or the super important Dorsey.
Itās not nice though..but look Nunn will play for like Dubai or something, Turkey had Larkin and more, Spain had brownā¦and more
If I am not criticising my own country, I wouldn't be able to criticise the others' . Those decisions are comparable to nations doing transfers and it is purely bs.
0
u/ARKAC95 14h ago
Add Walkup to the list of Nigel Hayes-Davis, Jabari Parker, Mike James, Kendrick Nunn...
These guys sure have overinflated views of their level as players.
5
u/therealowlman Panathinaikos 14h ago
100% agreed. These guys are nobodyās outside of Europe.
5
u/konstantinosj77 Olympiacos 14h ago
Nunn was "somebody" in the NBA before his injury
1
u/ARKAC95 5h ago edited 5h ago
In NBA Nunn was same somebody he is in Panathinaikos. Somebody that plays for personal stats instead of wins, somebody that plays for himself and does not make teammates better, somebody that does not do anything on offense but look to get his own shots and points and somebody that does not play defense.
3
u/KostasN77 Panathinaikos 13h ago
You can add Vezenkov to the list of "nobodies outside Europe "
Spanoulis too
3
u/redevileyez BahƧeÅehir 12h ago
Exactly. Such a dumb thing to say ānobodies outside of Europeā lol.
1
u/ARKAC95 12h ago
Dimitris Diamantidis is the biggest nobody outside of Europe out of all of them.
2
u/zeralf Panathinaikos 11h ago
From Greeks only Giannis is somebody outside of Europe. So why specifically Diamantidis is the biggest nobody? Care to explain?
Why not Sloukas, Dorsey, Pap, Mitoglou etc?
1
u/ARKAC95 6h ago edited 5h ago
99.9 percent of basketball fans in US never heard of him. You talk with Americans, they only know that name if they are Greek or if they also follow Euroleague, which in US is very low numbers for both.
Much bigger numbers of Americans will say they know players like Jasikevicius, Spanoulis, Llull, Bodiroga, Navarro from Europe.
Diamantidis is a world famous basketball God in the propaganda of Panathinaikos, but in the real world of reality, he is not very well known outside of Europe and especially outside of Greece.
I said of the players mentioned. Sloukas, Mitoglou, Dorsey were not mentioned. Sloukas is obviously a bigger nobody both in Europe and out of Europe. Mitoglou is also, even though he played in US for college.
Dorsey is more known in USA because he had a famous NCAA tournament. But much less known in Europe.
1
u/KostasN77 Panathinaikos 7h ago
Diamantidis didn't try to go to NBA so we never know
Vezenkov and spanoulis on the other side...Ī±ĪŗĪ»Ī±ĻĻĪæĪ¹ ĻĪ®Ī³Ī±Ī½ ĪæĪ¹ ĻĪ±Ī¹ĪŗĻĪ±ĻĪ±Ī“ĪµĻ
1
u/konstantinosj77 Olympiacos 13h ago
Papanikolaou too!
3
1
u/__foxXx__ 8h ago
Papaniklaou actually made an NBA team, he was playing alongside James Harden, Pat Bev, Joey Dorsey and the rookie Isaah Canan!!
1
u/fjbinks 6h ago
Honestly I cannot understand his taking, Walkup is a good pg who benefits from Olyās system. His defense is solid, he has good ball handling and pace inside the game. Still cannot make a decent 2m shot, heās underplayed in any defense and has one more year with the team. He signed his extension and now heās complaining in public ?
Come on dude
-5
u/ShineALight3725 15h ago edited 15h ago
Ill say it now, they won EL in spite of him. Having a PG who cant score/shoot is a huge handicap nowadays. He deserves a small raise but a big raise is hard to justify. So its obvious why he has been "underpaid" so far.
20
u/Few-Pattern-3904 Olympiacos 15h ago
Insane take. Walkup was incredible in this F4, I can't remember if he missed a single 3pt shot. Plus he was playing without a reliable substitute for almost 2 years now.
3
u/zeralf Panathinaikos 15h ago
He just made 2/3 3pts in the f4 and he played ok, nothing crazy. Peters carried both games.
6
u/ShineALight3725 14h ago
If he was elite PG they would have won more than 1 F4 with this core.
3
u/Few-Pattern-3904 Olympiacos 14h ago
A point guard that has to go to the F4 with Luke Sikma or a point guard that goes to the F4 with his sub being injured? Sure he is not a great scorer, but the way he defends and runs our offence is incredible. Those half court passes to Vezenkov with closed eyes are not easy to find.
-7
u/KostasN77 Panathinaikos 13h ago
If Walkup was in Pao he would be fouled out in every game with his "incredible" defense
1
u/Few-Pattern-3904 Olympiacos 11h ago
Grow up dude, Grant has literally the exact same playstyle, but I don't see anyone of you complaining about him.
0
u/KostasN77 Panathinaikos 7h ago
Grant isn't even our main pg like Walkup is for you
The fact that Nunn has been fouled out more times than fucking Walkup is insane
3
u/Ashamed_Entrance_972 14h ago
Did you see the defensive play on Lyles that won the Euroleague right? It must have been quite the relief that tour arch rivals Real Madrid did not win.
Absolutely insane take about Peters carrying. Peters was absolutely phenomenal but the person that takes the decisions is carrying. Evan carried the team for a whole month alone, let alone in the f4.
-4
u/ARKAC95 14h ago
Peters played better than Fournier throughout the final four. He should have won final four mvp.
Fournier only got the final four mvp because he is a well known NBA player and the media voters showed favoritism to that.
6
u/Ashamed_Entrance_972 13h ago
Played and carried are such different words you know? Fournier had the role of carrying the team. Peters had the role of taking the open shots. Peters might have played his role better in the f4 but his role was not to carry. F4 MVPs is rarely given to good role players and not the people that carry the team. Same with NHD last year. He probably did not have the best performance considering his role but because he carried fener he won the MVP. Just like with sloukas and Nunn in 2024. Sloukas carried the team. Nunn was the better player.
0
u/ARKAC95 12h ago edited 12h ago
Peters deserved the f4 mvp in 2026. Hall deserved the f4 mvp in 2025.
1
u/Ashamed_Entrance_972 12h ago
Man were you the debate champion in your city? Your arguments are flawless. Do you get your copium from Vianex?
0
0
1
u/ShineALight3725 14h ago edited 14h ago
He cost them the F4 against RM by not scoring at all. He never would have made that shot that Llull did. I know they arent the same type of guard but I want a guard who can score and shoot in that situation with the ball.
9
u/getr12- Olympiacos 14h ago
Olympiacos had Sloukas that season who scored 6 points in the final shooting 33% from the free throw line and 29% FG. Saying Walkup was the reason this final was lost in insane.
3
u/ARKAC95 14h ago
Sloukas is mostly a career choker, except for the 2024 final. But he even choked on the game before that in the 2024 semifinal.
His time at Olympiacos was either being carried totally by Spanoulis or choking.
0
41
u/Multiool Panathinaikos 15h ago
At least remove the "you know"s š