Kosta Koufos

Although Greek by nationality, Konstantine Demetrios Koufos is a professional basketball player born in the United States of America. Known as "Kosta", Koufos was born in Ohio and went to the GlenOak High School. As a senior in his high school, Koufos made it to the McDonalds All-American line-up and was also ranked by Rivals.com as the number 3 center of the 2007 high school class. Koufos was also a part of the Amateur Athletic Union and played on the team sponsored by LeBron James.

Although Koufos ended up being named the Division I Player of the Year, he narrowly missed out on the Mr. Ohio Basketball title. However, he more than made up for it with First Team All-State and First Team Northeast Inland All-District honours.

Koufos' high school record boasts of a 25.9 points per game average along with 15.4 rebounds per game and 5.2 blocks. He went on to join Ohio State University and replaced Greg Oden at Center for the Buckeyes. He chose college over a 3-year $5million deal with Olympiakos Piraeus in the Greek A1 League. Instead, he chose to lead the Buckeyes to the championship title of the 2008 National Invitation Tournament. Koufos played just one year of collegiate basketball and averaged 14.4 points per game with 6.7 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game.

In April 2008, Koufos decided to declare for the 20008 NBA Draft and was picked at 23rd overall by the Utah Jazz. Initially, Koufos had not signed an agent, making him eligible to return to college if he so desired. However after much speculation about playing in Greece, he decided to sign an agent.

Although Koufos holds an American and Greek passport, he chose to play for the Greek national team at the 2007 FIBA Under-18 World Championships. He was at the forefront, leading the Greeks to the finals of the tournament before losing out to Serbia. Koufos led the tournament in scoring, blocks and rebounds and was named as the MVP for the tournament.

For the Jazz, Koufos has become the backup center behind Mehmet Okur and starts almost all the games on the bench.

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