{"id":479566,"date":"2026-01-18T20:10:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T19:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=479566"},"modified":"2026-01-18T20:10:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T19:10:37","slug":"panathinaikos-win-but-ataman-fumes-some-players-dont-deserve-to-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/panathinaikos-win-but-ataman-fumes-some-players-dont-deserve-to-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Panathinaikos win, but Ataman fumes: \u201cSome players don\u2019t deserve to play\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Panathinaikos Aktor Athens<\/span><\/span><\/strong> escaped Thessaloniki with a hard-fought 74\u201369 win over PAOK<\/span><\/span><\/strong> in the Greek Basket League<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, but the result did little to calm head coach Ergin Ataman<\/span><\/span><\/strong>, who launched a scathing postgame assessment of his squad.<\/p>\n

Despite controlling the game early, Ataman was furious with his team\u2019s second-half performance:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe played great in the first half, but in the second half we had foul trouble with Osman and Holmes, and we also had problems with Grant. We had zero contribution from some players who ruined our system. It was a very difficult game and we risked losing it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sloukas stands out as a true leader<\/h3>\n

Amid the criticism, Ataman singled out Kostas Sloukas<\/span><\/span><\/strong> for special praise, highlighting his mentality and leadership:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cDespite being 36 years old, he showed that he is a leader, a strong character, even in difficult moments. It\u2019s one thing to be a good player, another to be a great player. Being great is hard \u2014 and that\u2019s what Sloukas is.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Missing stars and a clear warning<\/h3>\n

Ataman also pointed to the absence of key players and the lack of impact from the bench:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe were without three important players \u2014 Nunn, Rogkavopoulos and Mitoglou. We had problems with players coming off the bench who destroyed our system. Basically, only five players were playing. Sloukas showed character. We need those three players; we missed them today. Some people don\u2019t deserve to play on this team.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Panathinaikos coach concluded with a blunt message about the near future:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe are waiting for the injured players to return. Then, those who don\u2019t deserve it won\u2019t play. Now it\u2019s too late for changes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Strong words following a narrow road win, underlining Ataman\u2019s high standards and the growing internal pressure within Panathinaikos despite the positive result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

arrow victory over PAOK overshadowed by strong words from the coach and praise for Sloukas\u2019 leadership<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":473828,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[249],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-479566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greece"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2025\/12\/IMG_2219.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479566"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=479566"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=479566"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=479566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}