He is one of the best European basketball players. This evening Dimitris Diamantidis conquered yet another peak in his career. He is as of now top spot on the Euroleague all-time list of players with the most steals.
Diamantidis has snatched the ball 327 times from his opponents, starting back in 2004 up to date and is now roomies on the top of the list with Thodoris Papaloukas behind the exact same accumulation. Let it be noted however that as far as steals per game he is “numero uno” with 1.78 an average, having performed in 184 encounters. Papaloukas’ equivalent average is 1.37, having played in 239 clashes. Pablo Prigioni rests at third place (320), fourth position belongs to Gianluca Basile (261) while fifth spot is currently covered by JR Holden (247).
It all started for Diamantidis back in the 2004-05 season, when the current Panathinaikos captain was signed onto the clover having been purchased from Iraklis. His… intentions were crystal clear from the very beginning since in his first ever Euroleague game on the 3rd of November and at an away game at that, versus Unicaja Malaga he nicked the ball 4 times… Coincidentally his personal record for most steals was also versus a Spanish team when he stole the ball 7 times on the game of November 23, 2006. Overall he tallied 51 steals back in his first year in the league. Diamantidis steals per season are as follows:
2004-05, 51
2005-06, 53
2006-07, 52
2007-08, 34
2008-09, 31
2009-10, 18
2010-11, 36
2011-12, 34
Dimitris Diamantidis is also third best disher of all time for Euroleague having 744 assists, needs only 3 blocks in order to become only the first guard ever to have reached 100, is forth in ranking… And continues to create his own records, even though concerning all this he makes the exact same comment: “In the end all that’s left is the titles and titles are conquered by teams”.
