San Antonio Spurs NBA 2015 news: Tony Parker becomes EuroBasket all-time leading scorer
The French national basketball team is currently defending their championship at the 2015 EuroBasket but before even successfully doing that they had something to celebrate as point guard Tony Parker became the all-time leading scorer in the history of the tournament.
In Monday's game against Poland, Parker scored France's first basket which made him reach the scoring milestone.
The former all-time leading scorer was Greece legend Nikos Galis who has 1,030 points, which Parker tied in France's win over Bosnia and Herzegovina Sunday.
Entering the game against Poland, the San Antonio Spurs point guard needed one more point to surpass Galis and a jump shot to tie the game at 2–2 made him the all-time leading scorer in EuroBasket history.
Parker finished the game against Poland with a team-high 16 points as they also won 69–66.
"When I started my career, I never thought it would end up like this in my life. My career, my plans, I could never have imagined it. It's been like a dream," Parker said, according to the EuroBasket website.
The 33-year-old point guard added, "When you're talking about the leading scorer in history, winning a EuroBasket, all the individual records, you don't appreciate the significance of all the things you win...it's an honour to be in a conversation for the best European player in history."
Parker also called it "bizarre" that a French is number one despite of all the great players who stood out in the history of the EuroBasket.
In 2013, Parker led France to its very first EuroBasket gold medal finish as they defeated Lithuania 80–66 in the championship game.
This year the French are looking to defend their title successfully which will give them a berth for the basketball competition at the 2016 Summer Olympics that will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Four nations have already qualified for the men's basketball competition at the 2016 Olympics and these are host nation Brazil, 2014 FIBA World Cup champion the United States, 2015 FIBA Oceania champion Australia, and AfroBasket 2015 champion Nigeria.
