Codi Miller-McIntyre spoke in a comprehensive interview with “Eurohoops” about Dinos Mitoglou, the Bulgarian national team, and the season of his career.
The Bulgarian international discussed his close friendship with Dinos Mitoglou, with whom he shared the locker room at Wake Forest University. He began by sharing an anecdote where Panathinaikos offered him a 1+1 contract, and the first person to call him was indeed the Greek player.
“Dinos Mitoglou was the first to call me, we laughed and talked about it: ‘How crazy would that be?’ we asked each other. Playing together on such a stage after so many years. He is a great person and player, one of the few people in this world I call my brother.”
He then turned his attention to the Bulgarian national team. Naturally, the standout player is Sacramento Kings’ Sasha Vezenkov, and the former Partizan player was impressed by him on his international debut. Vezenkov scored 30 points in the game against Portugal.
“Sasha is, above all, a great person. I was a bit nervous about playing for the Bulgarian national team, but he was very open and kind, telling me to just play my game and not worry about whether he would get the ball. He told me to express myself, and I think we ended up playing very well together.
It was crazy to see, he was in his element, and I didn’t even want to shoot the ball. I thought, ‘This guy is playing like crazy right now.’ It was incredible to see how much love he gets in his country and how many people came to watch him and chant his name. He was extremely humble about it.”
Codi Miller-McIntyre and the thorny path to EuroLeague engagement
“What people also don’t see are the situations I’ve been through and the amount of work I’ve put in. Without anyone seeing it, without Instagram, social media following that. All of that influences how I ended up here and why I’m doing it in my first year in the EuroLeague. And that goes for every player: as long as you consistently work, regardless of how things are going, striving to maintain a positive mindset, at some point, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. It might take seven years, as in my case, I turned 29 this year, and this is my first year in the EuroLeague. It took years to get to this point.”
