Get well soon, Milos!
With one game left to play in its Euroleague season, Olympiacos has only to face the same old enemy that has dogged their exceptional 2009-10 season. No, BiE’s not talking about Barcelona here or even home-country rivals Panathinaikos, but rather a flu bug.
Olympiacos coach Panagiotis Giannakis stated on Saturday that, “After the game with Partizan, [Milos] Teodosic was suffering from a stomach flu. We hope that he is able to play and help us tomorrow.”
While one can hardly imagine Teodosic missing what would be his first Euroleague championship entirely – after all, the man has played in an average 43 games per season (not including Greek Cup and ESAKE playoff games) over the past six and has hardly missed a game – but after the surely exhausting overtime game last night and a light practice at best for Teodosic, one has to wonder just how much he’ll have for Barça on Sunday night.
Euroleague and ESAKE followers will of course recall that the Olympiacos trip to the United States was followed by the likes of Josh Childress, Ioannis Bourousis, Kostas Papanikolaou and Sofoklis Schortsanitis in turns contracting the H1N1 flu virus, a sickness that BiE swears explains the last’s somewhat lackluster play through December and certainly justifies the 1-2 start Olympiacos got off to in Euroleague play in 2009.
Here’s to hoping Teodosic gets well soon; it would be a shame to see either of the deserving Euroleague championship contenders have to enter the final game at less than peak strength.
UPDATE: Teodosic was reported as not having attended last night’s All-Euroleague Team awards ceremony. According to the league, Teodosic “was too sick to attend the ceremony.”
Teodosic was named Euroleague MVP for the season, as well as getting the nod for All-Euroleague first team at point guard, beating out Bo McCalebb of Partizan Belgrade for the honor.
