DRAZEN DALIPAGIC - 101 Greats of European Basketball

Drazen
Dalipagic
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The sky jumper
The history of Drazen Dalipagic is not
your typical one, in which a great young
talent has a brilliant junior career, then
explodes later as a senior and meets all
expectations. Simply put, Dalipagic was
always a senior because at the age when
Kresimir Cosic, Dragan Kicanovic, Zoran Slavnic,
Mirza Delibasic and the rest were exploding into basketball
and well before he would join them and form a
great Yugoslavian national team, Dalipagic was playing
... football. His nickname precisely comes from his
football days. A central defender of FC Velez Mostar
was called Prajo – and for some reason, Dalipagic also
took that name, which in Belgrade would later become
“Praja” (pronounced, pra-ya).
Dalipagic, who was born on November 27, 1951 in
Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, came into basketball
by chance. But with a talent for all ball sports, he soon
became the best player in Lokomotiva, the local team
from Mostar. His talent took him to the Bosnia-Herzegovina
national team, with whom, in a tourney played
in Zvornik of his native country, he destroyed Serbia in
front of Ranko Zeravica, then the coach of Yugoslavia
and the future Partizan coach starting in 1972. What
Zeravica saw in Dalipagic was already known among
Yugoslav scouts. Everybody wanted to sign him. Jugoplastika
took the lead in that race and the young player
even got some advance money from the deal. But Partizan
persevered. At the end of the 1970-71 season, Partizan
descended into the second division, but thanks to
a change in the competition system, the team got back
to the first division for the start of the next one because
the second division had been played through the summer.
Djordje Colovic, a smart Partizan man, convinced
Dalipagic to travel to Belgrade by telling him about the
club’s big plans to build a great team with Zeravica on
the bench. Dalipagic would only accept under one condition:
that Partizan was back in the first division. When
Partizan met its side of the deal, Dalipagic did the same,
even though breaking his agreement with Jugoplastika
cost the player a six-month suspension from the Bosnian
federation. He made his debut on the road against
Zadar with only 3 points. But in the debut in front of his
own fans, against Lokomotiva Zagreb (the future Cibona),
he scored 21. That was the start of a brilliant career
that would end at Crvena Zvezda in the 1990-91 season
with the legendary Praja at 39 years of age.
Shoot and jump
Praja was not as talented as Cosic, as imaginative
as Kicanovic, as elegant as Delibasic or as smart on the
court as Slavnic. But he had two things that turned him
into one of the best scorers ever. He could shoot and rebound.
Or jump and shoot. Two inseparable elements.
He jumped to grab the ball, he jumped to take a shot,
especially from the corner, his favorite spot. We can add
a third element, related to rebounds: dunks. His were
spectacular, a combination of strength, quickness, confidence
and, also, a great understanding with Dragan
Kicanovic, who dished special assists to make Praja’s
alley-oops easier. The press in Belgrade nicknamed him
“The Sky Jumper”.
After the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Zeravica
left the national team to build a great Partizan. Dalipagic
was the first piece of the puzzle. In 1973, Kicanovic
joined the team, and one of the best Yugoslavian
101 greats of european basketball
Drazen Dalipagic
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Vladimir Stankovic
basketball duos ever was born. The successor to Zeravica
for the national team bench was Mirko Novosel,
his assistant. For the 1973 EuroBasket in Barcelona,
Novosel started a revolution: aside from the veterans
like Cosic, Rato Tvrdic, Damir Solman, Vinko Jelovac
and Nikola Plecas, he called Dalipagic, Kicanovic, Zeljko
Jerkov, Dragan Ivkovic, Zoran Marovic and Slavnic, already
a veteran at 24 whom Zeravica had not counted
on. The outcome was spectacular: Yugoslavia’s first
gold medal in a EuroBasket and the start of an era that
would peak with the gold medal at the 1980 Olympics
in Moscow. The core of this brilliant team was formed
by Cosic (born in 1948), Slavnic (1949), Dalipagic (1951)
and Kicanovic (1953). As can be seen, they were not
from the same generation, but they connected on the
court. They played in four different positions and they
only needed a fifth man to form an unstoppable starting
five. Usually, the fifth man was center Zeljko Jerkov.
Owner of 12 medals
When distributing roles, Praja had always the toughest
one: scoring as much as possible. He started in Barcelona
in 1973 with an average of 8 points per game. In
Belgrade 1975 he had 12.1. Then came Montreal 1976
(18.2 ppg.), Belgium 1977 (19.8), Manila 1978 (22.4) and
Turin 1979 (14.0), Moscow 1980 (24.4), Prague 1981
(17.0), Columbia 1982 (18.1), Nantes 1983 (18.3), Los
Angeles 1984 (21.9) and Madrid 1986 (16.2). During
his 13 years with the national team, in the three great
competitions – EuroBasket, the World Cup, and the
Olympic Games – he won 12 medals: 5 golds, 3 silvers
and 4 bronzes. He played 246 games and scored 3,700
points, 400 more than second-in-line Kicanovic and
520 more than the third-best scorer, Cosic. Only Cosic,
with 14, has more medals than Dalipagic. His scoring
high for the national team was 46 points against Romania
in 1976, the second-best mark ever on the team,
surpassed only by Drazen Petrovic’s 47 points against
the Netherlands in 1986.
In his 10 years at Partizan, Dalipagic played a total
of 305 games, scored 8,278 points (27.1 per game)
and won two national leagues, one domestic cup and
one Korac Cup, in 1976. He also played in Italy for
Venezia, Udine and Verona, totaling 241 games with
7,993 points and 47.1% three-point shooting. He was
top scorer in Italy three times, with averages of 30.8,
36.5 and 36.3 points per game. On January 25, 1987,
playing for Venezia against Virtus Bologna (107-102) he
scored ... 70 points! In Venezia, in the second division,
his average for the 1981-82 season was ... 42.9 points!
In the 1982-83 season, he played for Real Madrid, but
only in the EuroLeague. In that team, he met fellow Bosnian
Mirza Delibasic.
At 39, Dalipagic accepted the call from his great
friend Moka Slavnic, coach of Crvena Zvezda, for the
1990-91 season and he didn’t disappoint. He scored
321 points and his three-point accuracy was 38%. The
esteemed players who achieved more than him that
season are: Arian Komazec of Zadar was the best scorer
(645), Zarko Paspalj of Partizan second (576), Toni
Kukoc third (438). The best shooters from downtown
were Zeljko Obradovic of Partizan (58.5%) and Velimir
Perasovic of Jugoplastika (50%).
Dalipagic could have been the first European in
the NBA. After the Montreal Olympics in 1976, where
Yugoslavia lost the final to the USA, the Boston Celtics
called Praja. He spent two weeks in their summer camp
and convinced everyone. But signing for an NBA team
would mean losing his “amateur” status, which would
deprive him of playing with Yugoslavia in FIBA competi-
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After all, he was named the European player of the year
three times - in 1977, 1978 and 1980!
After his great playing career, Praja coached Gorizia
of Italy for several years, and then was sports director
from some humble teams of Belgrade. More recently, he
has been living away from basketball. His son Davorin
followed his footsteps and was a pro in Portugal, Italy,
Cyprus and even played for Partizan for a short stint.
But the weight of his name was too big despite him being
a fine player.
Because his father was too great.
Drazen Dalipagic
tions. It was too big a sacrifice for such a patriotic player.
I think that, because of his playing style, his physical
strength, his scoring and rebounding abilities, he would
have been able to play in the NBA without a doubt. The
European pioneers (Sarunas Marciulionis, Vlade Divac,
Alexander Volkov, Drazen Petrovic) confirmed the European
potential some 10 years later. His greatness was
recognized when Dalipagic was inducted into the Naismith
Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on September
10, 2004. FIBA did the same on September 12, 2007.
101 greats of european basketball
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