INTERVIEW: NICK CALATHESInterview by: C. Smith HTV: First thing's first. How is life in Greece so far? CALATHES: Greece is great. I love the guys. I love the team. I love living in Greece. Life outside basketball is great and I have a great house to live in. I love the weather and I am getting used to the people and hopefully I will learn (to speak) some Greek soon. HTV: Are you in Greece solo or did you bring a friend / assistant / manager to stay with you? CALATHES: I am over here with my brother (Former St. Joseph's Hawks star Pat Calathes.). We hang out a lot. My brother came over here one year earlier (to play ball), so it helps a lot to have someone that has been here for a year already. HTV: Tell me about where you're living; Are you driving over there?; Do you go out at night?; etc...What's the lifestyle of a young, single pro player in Greece like? CALATHES: I live in an nice area, called Pefki. They (Panathinaikos) got me a nice house. I have a dog named Tyson, like Mike Tyson. They got me a car sponsored by Sang Yong so I can go out with the guys. Usually if I go out it is after games. If we get a big win all the guys (on the team) go out together. Otherwise I have to keep my mind on the game. The guys on the team are great with me, they really accepted me. I love the lifestyle here in Greece. I spend a lot of time also at the gym, working on my game. I can't ask for more from Greece. The people are great. It's a great experience so far. HTV: What were the one or two things you absolutely had to bring with you to Greece? CALATHES: My lap top was the number one thing so I could use ESPN.com to stay updated on things back home. My iPod and my clothes as well. There is a different style of dress code here, but I usually dress like I always have in the States. HTV: We know that you are obviously of Greek decent, but how aware were you or how much exposure did you have to Greek culture before you came to play for Panathinaikos and did you speak any Greek prior to your arrival? CALATHES: Not much. My grandfather was born here, but he moved to the States when he was 21 and my dad lived in the States his whole life, so I really didn't have a feeling for Greek culture. But I am getting the feel for it right now and I like it a lot. And I am starting to speak Greek. I know a couple of words, but I am getting a tutor, so I should know more for my time on the national team next summer. HTV: What was your first day / practice with the Panathinaikos like? CALATHES: It was good and I really like the guys on the team. They know the game really well and they help me a lot. Guys like Drew (Nicholas) and Mike (Batiste) helped a lot on what coach liked and what kind of system this is. I love the coaches and I think they can teach me a lot and I think this will help me in the long run. I learn something everyday in practice or the games. HTV: How is the Panathinaikos team looking this year? CALATHES: I think we look very good. Every game and every practice we get better, chemistry wise. We had some injuries through the beginning of the year so we need to get and stay healthy. We have a very good team, obviously we still have some things to work on, but we are getting better and we'll be in a position to defend out title. HTV: On the Panathinaikos website they list your position as "playmaker", so what's your role on-the-court for the team? CALATHES: The "playmaker's" job is to get your teammates involved, run your team, make sure that you know what's going on on the court, what mismatches there are and stuff like that. That's what a "playmaker" does. HTV: Did you set any personal goals for your rookie season in Greece? CALATHES: Just to learn. Obviously it's going to be a learning process. I am young, I have never played this kind of style basketball, except for the national team, so I am still learning. But, I think I am learning really well, I am in a gym a lot, so I think it will help me a lot through the year. HTV: Talk about the differences in style of play between college hoops in the States and playing pro ball in Europe? CALATHES: It's a totally different style. The States is more up and down. I think here you have to know the game a lot more and you have to think more. It's more crowded in the paint and I think that makes here more physical. HTV: I understand that your good childhood friend and fellow Gator Taurean Green plays for AEK in Greece. What did he tell you about life in European basketball in preparation for you jump to Greece? CALATHES: I've known Taurean since I was seven and he is like an older brother to me. He told me it's a different style of basketball and to be ready to learn. He learned a lot from being over here and told me to just take each and every day as a learning experience. HTV: Having Green close by in Greece has got to be a cool situation, right? CALATHES: I hang out with him and I see him out. We go out for dinner together as well. He is a great friend. Again, it's great to know people here. HTV: Back in September you played with the Greek national team in the EuroBasket 2009 tournament. What was that experience like? CALATHES: It was a great experience. It was the first time for me playing in an international competition and this kind of style of ball and I think it helped prepare me a lot for this season. HTV: Talk about your decision to leave Florida and go pro. Then expand on that to talk about what made you choose playing in Greece over the NBA. CALATHES: I thought I was ready to be a pro. I wanted to play basketball every day, I wanted to do my job, I thought I was ready to make it to the next level, to take the next step and I thought it was a great situation to come over here. I chose Greece over NBA because I thought it was a good situation for me, to learn the style of game here. I am still young and I think to learn from one of the best coaches, on one of the best teams in Europe, can help me be a better player all around. HTV: You signed on in Greece before the 2009 NBA Draft. So did you follow this past summer's Draft live or did you not worry about it until the next day? CALATHES: I for sure watched it live. It's once in a life time that you get drafted and I was blessed to get drafted. I had a little party in my house and all my friends came over and we had a lot of fun. As I said it's once in a lifetime and it's a dream to come true to get drafted. HTV: The T-wolves selected you with the 45th pick and then traded your rights to Dallas. Have you talked with Dallas head coach Rick Carlisle or other front office people there and if so what did they have to say about your future? CALATHES: I talked to coach Carlisle since I've been here and I have talked to Marc Cuban. I was going to play in the summer league (Las Vegas), but FIBA made a rule saying that I couldn't. So I have stayed in close contact with them throughout the year. I think Dallas could be a great fit for me, maybe in the future, but right now I am focused only on Panathinaikos and hopefully we can win the Euroleague championship again this year and we'll go from there. HTV: What elements of your game does the coaching staff at Panathinaikos have you working on? CALATHES: The coaching staff has me working on coming off ball screens and my dribbling skills. There are a lot of ball screens obviously (within the team's offense)...that's the main thing. HTV: Flashing back to your Florida days for a minute...We heard all the stories and rumors about coach Donovan with regards to how unhappy he was with the Gator teams you played on and thus how tough he was on those squads. Looking back, how much truth was there to the word on the street and how tough was it playing for Donovan during those times? CALATHES: Obviously any coach would like to win. Coach Donovan is one of the hardest workers I know and that's what I love about him. He is great coach, he knows the game and he has back-to-back national championships. The whole team was getting mad that we were not winning. We had a good enough team to make it to the Tournament. I loved playing for coach Donovan and he is a great person, a great guy and a great coach. I wouldn't take anything back, that I had experienced those two years at Florida. Obviously I would like to have won a little bit more, but... HTV: Any thoughts on what held those Gator teams back from meeting people's expectations? CALATHES: I think our team obviously was young. In my freshman year six top guys left (from the previous season). We had five freshmen and we were the youngest team in the country. Still, I thought we had a good enough team that year, but we didn't win the big games we needed to win. In my sophomore year, I thought that we would have been in (the NCAA Tournament), but we lost some bad games that kind of set us off -- like Georgia and a couple others one that we shout have won. There were some tough games at the end. We lost some close ones like against South Carolina and I think if we had won those two games we would have been in (the Big Dance). HTV: Does your boy Green ever rub it in that he has two NCAA title rings and you have none? CALATHES: Definitely! Not a lot of people have won two national titles in a row, so he definitely has that right to rub it in my face. It's brotherly love and he does it because he knows he can. HTV: What's the thing you miss the most about UF? CALATHES: The atmosphere, the people around the campus and how involved they were in sports. It's a great University with great people. I can't complain about anything about Florida. It was a dream come true when I committed there and I played for Florida, one of the best schools in the country. So I miss a lot about Florida. HTV: Obvioulsy your brother is former St. Joe's star, Pat Calathes, who as you mentioned is also playing in Greece right now for Maroussi. How is Pat doing? CALATHES: We are in the gym right now, working out together. He is doing good. Maybe he could play more but it's learning experience for him too, and I think he is coming along great. He's had some good games this year. HTV: Do you ever get sick of hearing that story about how in high school Pat was a 6-foot something point guard as a freshman and how he had a huge growth spurt to reach his current 6-10 height and that's why he can handle the ball like a guard? It seems like every time he and SJU were on TV, some CBB announcer would trot out that story. CALATHES: No, I don't get tired of hearing about it, just because you don't hear situations that people grow 10 inches through high school. It's one of these great stories that I can always hear about. HTV: When you and Pat go one-on-one these days, who wins? CALATHES: I am going say I do, but he is going to say he does...
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