Josh Childress Finding Role At Olympiacos

Former NBA Player Becoming Defensive Specialist with Greek Club

Dec 4, 2008

Josh Childress is slowly defining his role with Greek club Olympiacos as a defensive specialist who occasionally drives to the basket.

Olympiacos is one of the deepest basketball clubs in European hoops. And former NBA sixth man with the Atlanta Hawks Josh Childress has determined his role with the team as defensive specialist and occasional scorer.

Childress has started all six games at small forward for Olympiacos in the Euroleague, where the Greek club has gone 5-1 and is leading Group A. He is averaging 10.3 points with a high of 15 points and low of 4 points while adding 4.7 rebounds, 0.7 steals and 0.8 blocks. The former Atlanta Hawk had five assists through the first three games but hasn’t had one since.

And Childress is struggling in other areas as well still, committing 2.7 turnovers a game while shooting just 56% (13-of-23) from the free throw line. He also has only made 1-of-9 shots from beyond the three-point stripe, which at 20 feet 6 inches is closer to the 23 feet 9 inches of the NBA arc. In four seasons with Atlanta, Childress shot 36% from long range.

After three Euroleague games, Childress admitted to ESPN’s Outside the Lines on November 6 that he was still unsure of his role. “I can tell you they don’t want me to score 30 points. They don’t want me to score 25. Probably don’t want me to score 20. They want me to be well-rounded.” What Olympiacos want from Childress is help winning games.

Childress has proven to be a really strong defender with his long arms and excellent athleticism. Even though he does not get a lot of steals or blocked shots, he alters a lot of shots and causes turnovers – especially as part of Olympiacos head coach Panagiotis Giannakis’s pressing defensive system.

Childress can specialize on his defense because of the depth of the Olympiacos roster, which includes a number of the best players in European basketball at each position. Among them are Theo Papaloukas, Nikola Vujcic and Yotam Halperin.

One of Childress's biggest advantages is his quickness and athleticism. And he has used that on the offensive end to drive to the lane with the basketball for easy layups. He also works hard away from the ball on offense and gets open in the lane for layups and dunks.

Olympiacos has not won a Greek league championship since 1997, which was also the last time the club won the Euroleague crown. And that drought has been made even more painful by having to watch hated Greek rival Panathinaikos capture the last six domestic crowns and 10 of the last 11 titles while also winning the Euroleague three times since then - in 2000, 2002 and 2007. Olympiacos's reasoning on bringing in Childress is easy - to win games.

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