Fans Of The Greek Basketball Team Panathinaikos Were Lighting Off Flares And Going BONKERS For The Arrival Of Free Agent Signing Mario Hezonja At The Athens Airport
Jeeeeeesus Christ, I didn't realize the Greeks got down like that. Usually it takes a World Cup win or at the very least a regular season goal in soccer for Europeans to fill the air with that red hue of flares while chanting someone's name. But now they are doing it for Mario Hezonja?!? I had to look up to make sure it was the same guy that bounced between the Magic, Knicks, and Blazers before heading overseas. But it is indeed the same guy. Turns out Hezonja is apparently a lifelong Panathinaikos fan and I imagine NBA players in their proverbial prime aren't exactly climbing over each other to play ball in Greece. But I think the real reason is that Hezonja became the King, President, Zeus, or whatever is considered the head of Greece when he did this a few years ago.
Looking back, us Americans kinda look like pussies for simply clapping for our sports heroes without an ounce of fire in sight. Even #BillsMafia, which is the gold standard of hooliganism in the US, kept things extremely civil while greeting their team in the middle of the night during the frigid Buffalo winter after winning the AFC East for the first time in a quarter decade.
Meanwhile, this is what a Panathinaikos home game apparently looks like.
I will always root for a fanbase that chooses violence, which is why I have now added Panathinaikos to the laundry list of foreign teams I have picked up over the last year alongside Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund, and the KBO champion NC Dinos because I will always have a special place in my heart for the man that once did this.
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Let me make this clear though. I don't care how many fans were chanting or lighting fires. No basketball player's airport greeting will ever top LaMelo and LiAngelo Ball arriving in Lithuania as the happiest song ever written was performed in the background.
I can't believe this actually happened in real life and now only three years later LaMelo Ball is putting up 14/6/6 as a rookie in the NBA.
h/t Marty