Fotios Katsikaris (alternate spelling: Fotis) (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: Φώτιος Κατσικάρης, born 16 May 1967) is a Greek professional

basketball coach Basketball coaching is the act of directing and strategizing the behavior of a basketball team or individual basketball player. Basketball coaching typically encompasses the improvement of individual and team offensive and defensive skills, as wel ...

and a former professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player, he was most recently head coach for the

Unicaja Málaga Unicaja is a Spanish savings bank based in Málaga and chartered as a caja de ahorros providing retail banking services. The banks full name is ''Monte de Piedad y Caja de Ahorros de Ronda, Cádiz, Almería, Málaga y Antequera'' after th ...

of the Spanish Liga ACB. Katsikaris has started coaching at the age of 31, following a career as player, and he has worked in

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

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, and

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. He has also co-operated with the scouting team of the Boston Celticsbr>

Playing career

Katsikaris began playing

in the

youth system In sporting terminology, a youth system (or youth academy) is a youth investment program within a particular team or league, which develops and nurtures young talent in farm teams, with the vision of using them in the first team in the future if t ...

Ionikos Nikaias Ionikos Nikaias (full name Athlitikos Omilos Ionikos Nikaias, A.O. Ionikos Nikaias / el, Α.Ο. Ιωνικός Νικαίας) is a Greek multi-sports club that is based in Nikaia, Piraeus. It was founded in 1965, and it has teams in football, b ...

, and was promoted to the senior men's team at the age of 15, setting a record (at the time) for being the youngest player ever in the Greek top division. After some years with Ionikos and Sporting, he made the big step up in his career to

AEK Athens A.E.K ( el, AEK , formally Αθλητική Ένωσις Κωνσταντινουπόλεως; Athlitikí Énosis Konstantinoupόleos, ''Athletic Union of Constantinople''), known as A.E.K, is a major Greek multi-sport club based in Nea Filadel ...

, in 1990. A sophisticated pass-first point guard, Katsikaris played for AEK for six seasons, but he didn't manage to win any titles with them. In 1996, he joined Irakleio, where he stayed for two years, before retiring. Throughout his career, he played in a total of 197 games in the top-tier level Greek League, scoring 707 points (3.6 points per game). While recollecting on his playing years, he's mentioned

Panagiotis Giannakis Panagiotis Giannakis ( el, Παναγιώτης Γιαννάκης, ; born January 1, 1959), alternatively spelled Panayiotis Yiannakis or Yannakis, is a retired Greek professional basketball player and coach. As a player, he was primarily a poin ...

as his role model,

Rolando Blackman Rolando Antonio Blackman (born February 26, 1959) is a Panamanian-American former professional basketball player. He was a four-time NBA All-Star who spent most of his career with the Dallas Mavericks. Blackman was born in Panama City, Panama, ...

as his best ever teammate, and

Nikos Galis Nikolaos Georgalis ( el, Νικόλαος Γεωργαλής; born July 23, 1957), commonly known as either Nikos Galis ( el, Νίκος Γκάλης), or Nick Galis, is a retired Greek professional basketball player. Galis, who during his playin ...

as the most difficult player for him to guard. He's also said that his former coach,

Krešimir Ćosić Krešimir "Krešo" Ćosić (; 26 November 1948 – 25 May 1995) was a Croatian-Yugoslavian professional basketball player and coach. He was a collegiate All-American at Brigham Young University. He revolutionized basketball in Yugoslavia and w ...

, was the man who changed his life; when Ćosić signed him for AEK, Katsikaris had actually been about to quit basketball (at the age of 23), and go to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

for studies.

Club coaching career

AEK

In 1998, Katsikaris joined the

coaching staff The coaching staff is a group of non-athletes tied to a sports team. A coaching staff can be existent at all levels of athletics. It is led by a head coach (known as a manager or senior coach in some sports) and consists of one or more assistant c ...

. Between 1999 and 2003, he worked as an assistant coach to

Dušan Ivković Dušan "Duda" Ivković ( sr-cyrl, Душан "Дуда" Ивковић; 29 October 1943 – 16 September 2021) was a Serbian professional basketball player and coach. He served as head coach of the senior Serbian national basketball team from ...

and

Dragan Šakota Dragan Šakota (Serbian Cyrillic: Драган Шакота, Greek: Ντράγκαν Σάκοτα; born June 16, 1952) is a Serbian professional basketball coach, currently with LBa basketball club, Pallacanestro Reggiana. Playing career Šakot ...

, that period being the most successful for AEK in the recent decades (1 Greek League championship, 2 Greek Cups, and 1 Saporta Cup). In 2003, he was named head coach as part of a board's project to rebuild the squad with young players, after the glorious and expensive 1999–2003 period. Despite his (and his players') lack of experience, he did quite well, reaching the Greek League

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eit ...

' final, and the EuroLeague Last 16, during the 2004–05 season. Youngsters who evolved into protagonists during his tenure, included future

EuroBasket 2005 The 2005 FIBA European Championship, commonly called FIBA EuroBasket 2005, was the 34th FIBA EuroBasket regional basketball championship held by FIBA Europe. It also served as Europe qualifier for the 2006 FIBA World Championship, giving a berth ...

champions and EuroLeague stars, such as

Nikos Zisis Nikolaos "Nikos" Zisis (alternate spelling: Zissis; el, Νικόλαος "Νίκος" Ζήσης; born August 16, 1983) is a Greek basketball executive and former professional basketball player. During his pro club playing career, at a height of ...

and

Ioannis Bourousis Giannis Bourousis (Greek: Γιάννης Μπουρούσης; born November 17, 1983) is a former Greek professional basketball player who last played for ASK Karditsa of the Greek A2 Basket League. He is a 7 ft 0.75 in (2.15 m) 270 lb ...

Dynamo St. Petersburg

In 2005, he moved to Dynamo Saint Petersburg, achieving the 2nd place of the

Russian Super League Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries * Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and pe ...

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, and finally finishing 3rd overall in the league after the playoffs. Although the club was then described as "the rising power in Russian basketball", they went

bankrupt Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

at the start of the following season, and Katsikaris left Russia.

Valencia

Right afterwards, in October 2006, he was hired by the Spanish League club

Valencia Basket Valencia Basket Club S.A.D., commonly known as Valencia Basket (), is a professional basketball team based in Valencia, Spain. The team plays in the Liga ACB and the EuroLeague, with home games played at the Fuente de San Luis. The club is spon ...

to replace Ricard Casas. The plan was to build a team that could gradually move from mid-table obscurity to a higher level, but the goal wasn't achieved. Two seasons saw Valencia (then called ''Pamesa'' after their main sponsor) not proceeding further than the quarterfinals of the Spanish national league, and Katsikaris was fired after a poor start in the Spanish League 2008–09 season. After leaving Valencia, Katsikaris was rumored by the Greek

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as a major candidate for the vacant head coaching job with the senior men's Greek national team; a job that was eventually given to

Jonas Kazlauskas Jonas Kazlauskas (born 21 November 1954) is a Lithuanian professional basketball coach and former player. He was most recently the head coach of the Guangdong Southern Tigers in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA). Playing career Kazlauskas ...

Aris

In October 2009, Katsikaris took over

Aris Thessaloniki Athlitikos Syllogos Aris Thessalonikis, means Athletic Club Aris Thessaloniki
...

, replacing Andrea Mazzon. The momentum was very difficult for both the club and the coach: Aris had just failed to qualify for the EuroLeague through the

preliminary round A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

, and Katsikaris had only a few days' time until the start of the Greek League to re-organize the team. His tenure lasted exactly 100 days. As the team was obviously underachieving during the first round of the season, including a nightmare defeat at the hands of " eternal enemy" PAOK, he decided to resign in January 2010, saying that he ''had joined Aris at the wrong time'', and ''couldn't find a way to inspire the players''.

Bilbao

A few days later, Katsikaris returned to the Spanish League to coach

Bilbao Basket Club Basket Bilbao Berri S.A.D., commonly known as Bilbao Basket (), also known as Surne Bilbao Basket for sponsorship reasons, is a professional basketball club based in Bilbao, Spain. The team plays in the Liga ACB. Their home arena is the Bilba ...

(or ''Bizkaia'' for sponsorship reasons), at the time the second worst team of the 2009–10 Spanish League season, with a record of 4 wins in 17 games. Katsikaris made an instant impact; not only did the team avoid

relegation In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

, but they missed the playoffs by just one win, and also reached the EuroCup's 2009–10 Final Four. The next season was to be even more successful: Bilbao made it to the Spanish League playoffs and reached the finals, defeating

and Real Madrid in the early rounds. Although they eventually lost the title series to Barcelona Basquet, their 2nd-place finish in the post-season was the best position ever for Bilbao, plus it gave them an automatic 2011–12 Euroleague season ticket. In the meantime, Katsikaris signed an extension to his contract until 2014. Katsikaris was named the 2nd tier level EuroCup's

Coach of the Year Many sports leagues, sportswriting associations, and other organizations confer "Coach of the Year" awards. In some sports — including baseball and association football — the award is called the "Manager of the Year" award. Some of the ...

in 2013. In July 2015, it was reported that Katsikaris would become the head coach of

Murcia Murcia (, , ) is a city in south-eastern Spain, the capital and most populous city of the autonomous community of the Region of Murcia, and the seventh largest city in the country. It has a population of 460,349 inhabitants in 2021 (about one ...

, after the

EuroBasket 2015 EuroBasket 2015 was the 39th edition of the EuroBasket championship that was organized by FIBA Europe. It was co-hosted by Croatia, France, Germany, and Latvia, making it the first EuroBasket held in more than one country. It started on 5 S ...

, in which Greece took part.

Hapoel Jerusalem

On June 28, 2017, Katsikaris was hired as the

Hapoel Jerusalem Hapoel Jerusalem is a sport organization in Jerusalem as a local branch of the Hapoel movement. The branch was established in the 1920s and represents the city in more sports than any other sport organization in Jerusalem. Today, the club's leadi ...

head coach. However, on November 9, 2017, Katiskaris was fired by Hapoel Jerusalem due to poor results.

Iberostar Tenerife

On December 3, 2017, Katsikaris manages his first match with the team of the Canary Islands winning to Real Betis Energía Plus by 87-70.

Utah Jazz

In summer 2018, Katsikaris was hired by the

Utah Jazz The Utah Jazz are an American professional basketball team based in Salt Lake City. The Jazz compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference (NBA), Western Conference, Northwest Division (NBA), ...

as an assistant coach.

Gran Canaria

On June 26, 2019, he has signed 2-year contract with Herbalife Gran Canaria of the Liga ACB.

Unicaja Malaga

On January 21, 2021, he has signed with

of the Spanish Liga ACB.

National team coaching career

Russia

Katsikaris became the head coach of the senior men's Russian national basketball team in 2012. He resigned from coaching Russia in 2013, before coaching the team in any tournaments.

Greece

Katsikaris became the head coach of the senior men's

Greek national basketball team The Greece men's national basketball team ( el, Eθνική Oμάδα Καλαθοσφαίρισης Ελλάδος) represents Greece in international basketball. They are controlled by the Hellenic Basketball Federation, the governing body for ...

in June 2014.gazzetta.gr-Κατσικάρης κι επίσημα στην Εθνική!
11.06.2014 (article .)

Season by season results as head coach

Abbreviations:
QF; quarter-finals.
DNQ; did not qualify.
HNQ; had not qualified.
System of European eligibility is mainly based on the previous year's performance in domestic competitions.

References

External links

Euroleague.net Coach ProfileSpanish League Profile

FCM Coach Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Katsikaris, Fotios 1967 births Living people AEK B.C. players AEK B.C. coaches Aris B.C. coaches BC Dynamo Saint Petersburg coaches Bilbao Basket coaches CB 1939 Canarias coaches CB Gran Canaria coaches Greece national basketball team coaches Greek basketball coaches Greek men's basketball players Greek expatriates in Spain Greek Basket League players Ionikos Nikaias B.C. players Irakleio B.C. players Liga ACB head coaches Point guards Sporting basketball players Valencia Basket coaches Basketball players from Piraeus