Greece Tsakalidis began his professional career in 1996, at the age of 17, with the
Greek League club
AEK Athens. With AEK, he was a 2-time
Greek Cup finalist (1998, 1999), a
FIBA Saporta Cup winner (
2000), and a Greek Cup winner (2000). In those years with AEK, Tsakalidis played at a great level, especially in the painted zone area, where he complemented his teammates,
Michalis Kakiouzis and
Dimos Dikoudis, in that area. In 2000, the
Phoenix Suns selected Tsakalidis in the
2000 NBA draft despite a warning faxed from AEK to
NBA teams that they would not be letting him out of the four years remaining on his contract. The matter ultimately had to be resolved in the international
Court of Arbitration for Sport and Tsakalidis began his NBA career that year with the Suns. He would spend the next 7 seasons playing with various NBA teams. In 2007, he returned to Greece, after leaving the
Houston Rockets. He joined the Greek
EuroLeague club
Olympiacos.
NBA Tsakalidis was selected by the
Phoenix Suns, in the 1st round (25th overall) of the
2000 NBA draft. On 30 September 2003 Tsakalidis was traded by the Suns, along with teammate
Bo Outlaw, to the
Memphis Grizzlies, in exchange for
Brevin Knight,
Robert Archibald, and
Cezary Trybański. He was eventually traded by the Grizzlies to the
Houston Rockets, on 13 February 2007, for
small forward Scott Padgett. Tsakalidis' final NBA game was played on 28 April 2007 in Game 4 of the Western Conference First Round against the Utah Jazz. This series went to 7 games but Tsakaldis only played in Game 4 where Houston lost 85 - 98 and he recorded 2 points and 4 rebounds. In his
NBA career, he averaged 4.8 points per game and 3.9 rebounds per game. == National team career ==