Ioannis' focus on ensuring Eagles reach potential

Featured image: Mark Filpo (@codexdesignstudio)

Ioannis Dimakopoulos feels this East Perth Eagles team is the most talented he's been part of in NBL1 West and the front court especially is the best in all of NBL1 and that's why he wants to help them reach their potential no matter how many minutes he plays.

Dimakopoulos might be averaging his lowest minutes tally in his professional career on a team that he's played more than four games with and while like any player he'd never complain about playing more, if the Eagles are winning and playing to their potential that's more important to him.

That's where Dimakopoulos sees his role as being crucial of helping holding the Eagles players to account and to ensure they are doing all the right things because he doesn’t want them to waste the enormous talent they possess.

After Dimakopoulos arrived at the Eagles in 2025 and was part of them winning a final for the first time since the 2014 Grand Final triumph, he is enormously high on what this team of 2026 can achieve.

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The Eagles currently sit with a 5-4 record but Dimakopoulos feels they are only scratching the surface with a squad featuring three NBL26 players with David Okwera, Lat Mayen and Jonah Antonio.

When you add in globe trekking veterans like himself, Lee Roberts, the soon to return Sharif Watson and Steve Weingarten, and combine them with Bing Huang, Nick Filpo and Jermaine Malie, and there's no shortage of talent.

In fact, Dimakopoulos feels it's the most talented team he's been part of and that includes the Joondalup Wolves team he was a key member of and in fact shot them to the Grand Final in a stunning preliminary final win back in 2023.

"We are happy with where we are but I feel like we lost two games that we could have got away with a win in," Dimakopoulos said.

"Obviously we need to do a little bit better job of defending our home and no one wants to lose on their own home, but I think from now on we will take care of that.

"As far as we go, we have a lot of new pieces in comparison to last year and we're trying to fit everybody in. There's big names and NBL players, and this team has I feel like maybe the most talent I've ever seen around in my four years of playing NBL1.

"It's not always easy to play all together because there's only one ball but the moment we get that down is going to be trouble for a lot of teams."

Splitting minutes with deep front court

The front court that Dimakopoulos is part of something that he has no trouble calling the best across the nation in the NBL1.

It's hard to argue when you factor in there is Okwera and Mayen directly off NBL seasons, and you add in what himself, Weingarten, Watson and Roberts all bring in terms of experience, reputation, credentials and what they are still able to produce.

There might even still be another piece to come into that front court of some quality too so while Dimakopoulos knows it's not always easy to juggle minutes amongst such a talented group, as long as the team is performing he can accept whatever comes his way.

"I've played in many teams that you might play 10 minutes or 15 minutes, and it's what you do with it and it might sound a bit hokey, but I do think that Eagles have the best front court in NBL1 throughout," Dimakopoulos said.

"If you add Lee with his 17, 18 years of experience, I've played for 15 teams already and even with Sharif coming back from injury, he's played professionally before for I don’t even know how many years in Australia now.

"Then obviously David got minutes with the Wildcats and important minutes as well and did very well, and he's obviously killing it now.

"Then Lat coming in as well is a very versatile player and I feel like he could play from five until two, and cover all the way up and down.

"Steve's also a veteran who has played in this league before and is a work ethic guy, and a very nice teammate to have around regardless of minutes or whatever, and he has gun on his right hand that we haven’t seen too much yet, and you can't leave that guy open.

"Or please do and see what happens."

Just wanting to be part of winning team

Dimakopoulos was part of a Joondalup team that was within touching distance of a championship back in 2023 and then part of the East Perth team that made it to the semi finals in 2025.

That's why he's not interested in celebrating too much that happens at this point of the season with his sole focus on making sure this talented Eagles group is doing all the right things now to give themselves a chance of the ultimate success later in the season when it matters.

"Even against my old team the Wolves I had a really good game and people were asking why I wasn’t celebrating and that's because I'm looking long-term," Dimakopoulos said.

"I'm looking at how we're going through the season and if we're preparing the right way before the game, are we all focused, are we all doing the right things and did I set a good screen, did I make the right read and did we play the play like Carl wanted us to play.

"I look at that stuff and I'm a bit old school where I'm about the team and I'm about the plays, and not really huge on the stats. But at the same time, everybody gets opportunity here even if it's five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever.

"We have so many players for so many things that it's interesting how we're going to manage it and get the positive result."

Finding a home at East Perth

Since Dimakopoulos' college career finished at UC Irvine back in 2017, East Perth is now the first team he's played back-to-back seasons at.

He has played at different clubs in Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Netherlands, Slovakia and Austria, and before arriving at the Eagles played NBL1 with the Eastern Mavericks, Joondalup Wolves and Perth Redbacks.

But it was how well he fit in on and off the court the Eagles in 2025 that had him wanting to come back for more and he'd like to make it a long-term home, but a lot of that does come down to where he ends up playing in between NBL1 seasons.

"I'm still 31 and one part is that I don’t know where tomorrow's going to be because the NBL1 season is only four and-a-half months," Dimakopoulos said.

"So then I'm technically not playing for almost 66 per cent of the year if I don't go and somewhere else, but this is the only team after college that I've signed back-to-back.

"So I don’t know if that gives you a hint about this club and it's not just playing, I do a lot of stuff for the Eagles whether it has to do with school visits, representing the club in meeting sponsors or events and even today I was here since 4 o'clock and I'm not going to be done until 10.

"That's working with a lot of the youth of the Eagles and trying to give back as much as I can under coach Lee Roberts who's the main person responsible for all the academies and what not. I'm not just a player, I'm also kinda like an employee so I do like being here at East Perth."