Skip to main content
SI

Olympiakos exits U.S. exhibitions leaving trail of alleged death threat

While Olympiakos lost both of its exhibition games against NBA teams this week, the Greek basketball club was on the verge of escaping the U.S. Tuesday with its
Ian Thomsen|

While Olympiakos lost both of its exhibition games against NBA teams this week, the Greek basketball club was on the verge of escaping the U.S. Tuesday with its uniforms and other property amid an allegation of a death threat.

At the heart of this strange European tour are outstanding U.S. court judgments demanding that Olympiakos pay $1.1 million to American player Chris Morris, who played for the club in 1999, and $410,000 to his American agent Tom McLaughlin.

On Monday another American agent, Gary Ebert, who also represents Morris, filed a report with police in Shreveport, La., alleging that he received a death threat from someone who claimed to be associated with Olympiakos president and owner Panagiotis Angelopoulos. Ebert tells SI.com that the threat followed a phone conversation he had earlier Monday with Angelopoulos. Ebert says he then received a call from a man with a Greek accent.

"I got a phone call from a Greek cell phone number," says Ebert. "The guy was going off on me to leave Angelopolous alone. I told him I'm going to get the money [owed to Morris]. The guy said, 'Leave him alone, do this through the court.' I said I have the right to call him. He said, 'Look, (expletive), leave Angelopoulos alone or I'll kill you."

Moments later Ebert called back and told the man he didn't appreciate being threatened. "He didn't have much to say that time," says Ebert. "I think he was surprised I had his number."

Ebert says the federal marshall in San Antonio refused last Friday -- before the Olympiakos-Spurs game that night -- to execute a writ from a federal judge to seize the uniforms, airline tickets and other properties of Olympiakos, in addition to monies carried personally by Angelopoulos and the Olympiakos G.M. As a result, Ebert says that he will file a Freedom of Information Act request to discover if anyone might have intervened on behalf of Olympiakos.

After losing Monday to the Cavaliers in Cleveland, Olympiakos was expected to return home to Athens on Tuesday without settling its judgments with Morris and McLaughlin. Ebert says his next move will be to seize upcoming bank transfers to Olympiakos from the Euroleague, which is based in Spain.

"You can write it in blood," says Ebert. "I am going to get the money."

Loading recommendations... Please wait while we load personalized content recommendations

Published | Modified
Ian Thomsen
IAN THOMSEN

Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated Sports Illustrated Senior Writer Ian Thomsen, who joined the magazine in 1998, is one of SI's top basketball scribes. Along with writing columns and features for SI, Thomsen is a frequent contributor to SI.com. Before joining SI, Thomsen spent six years in Europe as the sports columnist for the International Herald Tribune, the world's largest international English-language daily. While at the paper Thomsen wrote about an array of sports for a global audience, including the major world and European soccer tournaments, the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Olympic Games, Ryder Cups, Grand Slam tennis events, Grand Prix auto races and, very rarely, cricket. Thomsen, who graduated from Northwestern with a journalism degree in 1983, was a feature writer for The National Sports Daily during its short, expensive run of 1990-91. His first job was with The Boston Globe, where he covered Doug Flutie's Boston College Eagles and all three of the Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals of the 1980s. Thomsen was a feature writer at SI before taking on the NBA beat fulltime in 2000. With Luis Fernando Llosa and Melissa Segura, Thomsen covered the 2001 scandal of overaged Little League pitcher Danny Almonte and wrote the first SI cover story on Kobe Bryant in 1998. Thomsen lives with his wife and two children near Boston.

Home/More Sports