The Lithuania international played every single game in the Greens’ championship season
Tribute to the Champs: Marius Grigonis
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One of just a few survivors from the Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens side that finished 17th in the 2022-23 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season, Marius Grigonis had an integral role for head coach Ergin Ataman in 2023-24 as the Greens ended their 13-year wait to become champions once again.
In his sixth EuroLeague season, the 30-year-old Lithuanian was one of just three Panathinaikos players – along with Mathias Lessort and Jerian Grant – to play all 41 games for the club this season; he was named as a starter a team-high 36 times. Grigonis averaged 9.1 points, 2.7 rebounds and 1.3 assists for his best campaign in scoring since his last two seasons at Zalgiris Kaunas (2019-21) and his best-ever year in rebounding.
Grigonis proved himself to be a reliable option for Coach Ataman from day one, netting 17 points in Round 1 against archrival Olympiacos Piraeus and reaching double figures in points in four of the next six games. While much of the spotlight was on Kostas Sloukas, Kendrick Nunn and Lessort, Grigonis kept his head down and regularly made winning plays for a Panathinaikos squad that was a team-inspired under the leadership of Ataman.
The impact of Grigonis’s play helped Panathinaikos lock up the second spot in the regular-season standings. Although he saw a dip in his minutes in the Greens’ playoff series against Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv after an 11-point night in 24:27 minutes in Game 1, his 8 points in Game 4 in Belgrade proved to be crucial in forcing a Game 5 back at OAKA.
At the Final Four, he had 6 points and 3 assists in Panathinaikos’s semifinal triumph over Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul, then had just 1 rebound in 6:40 minutes, his lowest time on the court all season, during the Greens’ championship game victory against Real Madrid. Grigonis surely would have liked to have had a greater impact in the title decider, but his contribution throughout the entire campaign was vital in helping Panathinaikos recover its former glories.