Aris Basketball Club (Greek: Άρης K.A.E., transliterated into English Aris B.S.A.) known in European competitions as Aris Thessaloniki, is the professional basketball team of the major Thessaloniki-based Greek multi-sport club A.C. Aris Thessaloniki. Aris BC was founded in 1914. Their traditional home arena is Alexandreio Melathron (Nick Galis Hall).
Aris B.C. is one of the most successful Greek basketball clubs of all time, tallying ten Greek League championships and eight Greek Cups, making the Double four times (1986–87, 1987–88, 1988–89, 1989–90). They have also won three European titles: the FIBA European Cup (1992–93), the FIBA Korać Cup (1996–97), and the FIBA Europe Champions Cup (2002–03). They are one of only two non-relegated teams from the Greek League, with participation in every Greek First Division Championship until today (the other team is Panathinaikos). Aris holds the record for the most consecutive wins in the Greek League, with 80 wins in a row. Before the arrival of Nikos Galis to Aris, and the first European successes of the team. Aris helped to establish basketball in Greece and to increase its popularity in the country.
Under the leadership of Nikos Galis and Panagiotis Giannakis, Aris was a significant force in Greek basketball during the 1980s and early 1990s. It is for this period of dominance that Aris BC has been nicknamed "The Emperor", and was voted the most successful Greek sporting club of the 20th century. Aris is also one of the most renowned Greek clubs in European basketball, participating in three consecutive FIBA European Champions Cup Final Fours, and later on winning three lower-tier level European titles. This period also included winning the FIBA Korać Cup in the 1996–97 season.
Notable players that have played with the club over the years include: Nikos Galis, Panagiotis Giannakis, Nikos Filippou, Lefteris Subotić, Miroslav Pecarski, Stojko Vranković, Mike Jones, Walter Berry, Edgar Jones, Roy Tarpley, Reggie Theus, Panagiotis Liadelis, Harold Ellis, José "Piculín" Ortiz, Mario Boni, Žarko Paspalj, Martin Müürsepp, Tiit Sokk, Mikhail Mikhailov, Joe Arlauckas, Giorgos Sigalas, Andrew Betts, Nikos Chatzivrettas, Nestoras Kommatos, Will Solomon, Michalis Kakiouzis, Dimos Dikoudis, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Jeremiah Massey, Kostas Papanikolaou, Kostas Sloukas, Dinos Mitoglou, Aleksandar Vezenkov, Bryant Dunston, and Vasileios Toliopoulos.
Contents
History
Early history
Aris B.C., the basketball branch of Aris Thessaloniki AC, was founded in 1922, 8 years after the founding of Aris AC. The sport of basketball was new to Greece, having been introduced in the country in 1919. In those days, the teams shared a single open-air court, and Aris competed in the local Thessaloniki regional championship, which it won 5 times, in the years 1926–30. During these first steps of the sport, it was significant also the contribution of the Armenian community of the city, with players like Exoutzian, Daneilian, Benlian, Marasian, Kontaxian, Karabetian, Isujian and Jamjian.
The first nationwide Greek Championship was held in 1927–28, and Aris BC won its first Greek championship title on 23 April 1930, after beating ΧΑΝΘ with a score of 32–22. Aris quickly created a remarkable tradition in basketball, with notable figures, like Faidon Matthaiou (considered the Patriarch of Greek basketball) and Anestis Petalidis, who was coach of the team for almost two decades.
The first appearance by Aris in an official international European-wide competition was during the 1966–67 season, when they participated in the 2nd-tier level European Cup Winner's Cup, as the Greek League runners-up. From that season onward, Aris acquired the Alexandreio Melathron as its home court, which it still is to this day.
Legendary years: Galis, Giannakis and Ioannidis era (1978–1993)
The post-World War II Greek League period was marked by the dominance of basketball teams from Athens, but this all began to change in 1979. In that year, Aris won their first Greek League championship in the modern era, largely through the inspired play of Charis Papageorgiou, and the coaching of Giannis Ioannidis, an ex-player of the team. It helped provide the spark for the complete domination of Greek basketball by Aris, during the second half of the 1980s and the early 1990s.
If that first Greek championship was the spark, then the fuel for Aris' brilliant stint at the top of the sport was undoubtedly Nikos Galis, thought by many Greek basketball fans to be the best Greek basketball player of all time, and one of the best ever in Europe. Galis, the son of Rhodian immigrants from New Jersey, signed on to the team in October 1979, and played his first game against Iraklis in December of that year, scoring 30 points. Fred Develey, the former coach of Maccabi Tel Aviv, who later became coach of Aris, was instrumental in convincing the management that Galis would not only change Greek basketball, but that he would change also Greek basketball in Europe. The management was more concerned about his lack of height than his ability, until they saw him play.
It would take another four years for Aris to rise to the top of the Greek League again, winning the national championship in 1983. That year also marked the return of Giannis Ioannidis to the Aris bench as coach.
A successful 1983–1984 season ended as Aris battled for both the Greek League championship and the Greek Cup, but lost the national cup final to crosstown rivals PAOK, and the league championship game to Panathinaikos. During Aris' games against Maccabi Tel Aviv in the qualifying round for the first-tier level FIBA European Champions Cup (EuroLeague), in the fall of 1983. Aris was narrowly eliminated by an Israeli League team, but not before posting an away win at Tel Aviv, something that no other European team had managed to do for many years.
With the financial support of Akis Michailides, a successful Greek businessman and President of the team, Aris brought Panagiotis Giannakis to the team from Ionikos Nikaias, to play alongside players such as Nikos Filippou, Michalis Romanidis, Lefteris Subotić, Georgios Doxakis, Vassilis Lipiridis, and others, winning 7 Greek League championships, and 5 Greek Cups (with one Greek Cup being lost to Panathinaikos in 1986, as Galis performed poorly in a single-elimination game in Athens). Especially between 1985 and 1988, the question was not who the Greek League champion would be, but if Aris would go undefeated or not, as the club won an unparalleled 80 games in a row at one point.
Years of crisis and mismanagement (1993–2003)
With the departure of Michailides from the team's presidency in 1992, a long period of financial mismanagement of the club began, with the result that the club became indebted, and the team declined, especially in the Greek League.
With the exception of advancing to the semifinals of the FIBA European Cup of 1994, those two seasons (1993–94, 1994–95) were marked by players (Panagiotis Giannakis, Vangelis Vourtzoumis, Miroslav Pecarski, Vassilis Lipiridis, and Michail Misunov) filing lawsuits against the team, for not receiving their salaries and bonus incentives. Repeated wrong choices of foreign players, changing of coaches, as well as inept management by the ownership, were the highlights, rather than success on the court. Well-known Terry Catledge fled the team, Sam Vincent and Sean Higgins were released, while other inappropriate player choices, such as Anthony Frederick and Chris King were made. Despite all of this, the usual support of the fans, combined with the rise of some Greek players (Dinos Angelidis and Panagiotis Liadelis) supported Aris, and the team managed to qualify for the Korać Cup of the next year.
The 1995–96 season can be considered as a messenger of a change in Aris' fate. With Soulis Markopoulos as the team's head coach, Aris played disciplined basketball, with emphasis on defense. Panagiotis Liadelis and Dinos Angelidis, along with Harold Ellis, started to draw the crowds back into Alexandreio Melathron. That Aris team beat their arch-rivals PAOK, once during the Greek League regular season, while also advancing to a 4-team group in the European-wide FIBA Korać Cup, where they almost got first place in their group.
The team's main sponsor, Zafiris Samoladas, spent heavily, and revitalized the team. José Ortíz, Charles Shackleford, Tzanis Stavrakopoulos, Floros, Mario Boni, Papadatos, and Cholopoulos joined the team, which, all of a sudden, appeared to be strong at every position. The team started well, by beating PAOK and Panathinaikos, but faltered against Olympiacos, both in the Greek League championship, and for the Greek Cup, losing both games in Thessaloniki, and prompting the firing of Markopoulos.
Subotić, one of the team's three key players from the 1987–1992 era, took over as head coach, and produced some satisfactory results, but Aris still displayed a lot of the disadvantages of a newly formed team. Aris, though, had a spectacular run to the Korać Cup title, Beşiktaş of the Turkish League, Beobanka of the Yugoslavian League, Nikas Peristeri of the Greek League, and Benetton Treviso of the Italian League, were all eliminated by Aris during the competition with the overtime return leg game in Italy reminding many of the old glory days of Aris in Europe.
Recent history
2003–14
In 2003, the old Aris BC company was dissolved, due to the large amount of debts that it owed, and a new K.A.E. (basketball club) was created. A group of local businessmen from Thessaloniki, through the "Genesis Association", decided to take the majority stake.
In October 2002, Aris defeated Peristeri in the round of sixteen of the Greek Cup, advancing to the Greek Cup Final Four for the first time since 1999. That season, the club also competed in the FIBA EuroCup Challenge. The squad included Will Solomon, Ryan Stack, Fedor Likholitov, Miroslav Raičević, and Ivan Grgat.
However, the first attempt to regain the title of the Greek Cup was unsuccessful. The final four of the competition, held in Larissa, was the great rendezvous for all Aris fans around Greece. There were 3,500 crazy Aris fans in the sold out 5,500 capacity stadium of Larissa Neapolis Arena, and they did their best to support the team, in order to win the first Aris BC title since 1998. In the semifinal, Aris came back from a −24-point deficit, and finally beat Makedonikos by a score of 92–86. Aris proceeded on to the Greek Cup Final against rival Panathinaikos, whose task was much easier, as they had only needed to overcome Irakleio in the other semifinal.
The Greek Cup Final, held the next day, was a very tight and competitive game, but at the end, some critical and partial decisions of the referees in favor of Panathinaikos, as well as the fatigue of Aris' players from the previous day's semifinal, were the decisive factors that gave Panathinaikos the title. However, Aris' fans renewed their rendezvous for the upcoming final four of FIBA Europe Champions Cup, that was going to take place in Alexandreio, at Thessaloniki.
In front of 6,000 fans, that filled the Alexandreio Melathron stadium, as early as two hours before the starting jump-ball, Aris hosted KK Hemofarm of the Serbian League, for the semifinal game of the competition, on 2 May 2003. Aris was very nervous and needed a sudden wake-up in the second half, to overcome the difficulties of the game, and overcome the Serbian opponents. Aris was back in a European final. After six difficult and unbearable years. Now, there was only one game left to win a championship. The game would be against Prokom Trefl Sopot of the Polish League. Aris' fans were again ready at their positions, and created a unique atmosphere that remained the trademark of the competition. So on 5 May 2003, Aris and Prokom battled for the title. The game was almost the same as the previous one for Aris, and although a second-halftime wake-up call gave the impression that Aris had won the game, Prokom made an unexpected comeback, and was in the lead, 83–81, after a successful three-point shot by Darius Maskoliūnas, with only six seconds left in the game. At that time, the "ghost" of "the Empire", the one that "led" Aris to its great seven-year reign during the late 1980s, appeared once again in the Alexandreio Melathron. Will Solomon drew a foul for Aris, against Prokom. He made the first free throw, then missed the second free throw, but Miroslav Raičević grabbed the rebound, and put the ball in the basket, and Aris won the game at the very end, by a score of 84–83.
2015
In 2015, a new era started for the club, as Nikolaos Laskaris became the club's new major shareholder. With head coach Dimitris Priftis, and new players in the team, Aris B.C. once again began aspiring to be competitive, with the goal to either return to the EuroLeague, or have success in the FIBA Champions League, during the upcoming years.
2025
Aris B.C. entered a new era with the acquisition of a majority stake by the investement fund of Richard Hsiao in June 2025.
On 26 September 2025, Aris announced Igor Milicic as its new coach.
Roster
Honours
Domestic competitions
Greek League
Winners (10): 1929–30, 1978–79, 1982–83, 1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1988–89, 1989–90, 1990–91
Runners-up (8): 1928–29, 1957–58, 1958–59, 1964–65, 1965–66, 1975–76, 1981–82, 1983–84
Greek Cup
Winners (8): 1984–85, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1988–89, 1989–90, 1991–92, 1997–98, 2003–04
Runners-up (6): 1983–84, 1992–93, 2002–03, 2004–05, 2013–14, 2016–17
Greek Super Cup
Winners (1): 1986
European competitions
EuroLeague
Semifinalist / Final Four (3): 1988, 1989, 1990
FIBA Saporta Cup
Winners (1): 1992–93
Semifinalist (2): 1993–94, 1998–99
EuroCup Basketball
Runners-up (1): 2005–06
FIBA Korać Cup
Winners (1): 1996–97
Semifinalist (1): 1984–85
FIBA EuroCup Challenge
Winners (1): 2002–03
Regional
Thessaloniki Championship
Winners (6): 1925–26, 1926–27, 1927–28, 1928–29, 1929–30, 1957–58
Other
Sofia, Bulgaria Invitational Game
Winners (1): 2007
Pescara, Italy Invitational Game
Winners (1): 2007
Records and statistics
Sponsors and Manufacturers
Since 1980 Aris had a specific kit manufacturer and a kit sponsor. The following tables detail the shirt sponsors and kit suppliers of Aris by year:
Current Sponsorships
Great Shirt Sponsor: Betsson
Official Sport Clothing Manufacturer: Crossover
Arena
fpAris' long-time home court is the Alexandreio Melathron, with its main hall being named "Nick Galis Hall" in 2013, in honour of the legendary former Aris player Nikos Galis. The venue was completed in 1966, and it was renovated for the 2004 Summer Olympics. The arena has a seating capacity of 6,014 people.
Nick Galis Cup
Since 2014, Aris B.C. organizes every year, in the start of the season, a friendly mini-tournament in honour of Nikos Galis.
The road to the Great European Journeys
Notable players
Club captains
Aris B.C. team captains, since the 1979–80 season:
Greece national team players
These players have played for both Aris and the senior Greece men's national basketball team (in any game, official or friendly, and in any tournament, FIBA sanctioned, or non-FIBA sanctioned):