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Triple-double man<br />
Summer <strong>of</strong> 1995, FIBA U16 <strong>European</strong><br />
Championship in Portugal. In the title<br />
game, Croatia defeats Spain, 75-62. The<br />
many scouts who attended the game<br />
marked down a name in big red letters:<br />
Nikola Vujcic.<br />
Croatia’s number 14 played all 40 minutes <strong>of</strong> the<br />
title game, scored 18 points and grabbed 11 rebounds.<br />
It was an impressive double-double to match his performances<br />
throughout the tourney: 21.4 points and 11<br />
rebounds on average. Not even Vujcic himself had yet<br />
discovered his other talent: assists. Stats tell us that<br />
his assists average was just 0.6 in that tournament, but<br />
that was just the start <strong>of</strong> his career. He was 17 years old,<br />
having been born on June 14, 1978, in Vrgorac, close to<br />
Split, in Croatia. In the final in Portugal, he made 2 <strong>of</strong> 7<br />
three-pointers, not a very high percentage, but when a<br />
2.11-meter big man shoots so many threes, something<br />
catches your attention right away.<br />
In the 1995-96 season, Vujcic was already playing<br />
for the first team <strong>of</strong> KK Split, which then was called<br />
Croatia Osiguranje then. He got jersey number 7, probably<br />
not by chance, since before that it had been worn<br />
by Toni Kukoc, the club’s best player ever and then an<br />
NBA star with the Chicago Bulls <strong>of</strong> Michael Jordan and<br />
Scottie Pippen. In his first season, still a junior, Vujcic<br />
averaged 6.6 points and 2.4 rebounds. The following<br />
season he improved to 6.8 points and 3.2 rebounds,<br />
and on March 22 he won his first trophy, the Croatian<br />
Cup, beating Cibona 72-67. Josip Vrankovic, Damir Tvrdic<br />
and Nikola Prkacin were the best players for the winners,<br />
but the biggest talent was Nikola Vujcic. He stayed<br />
with Split for four more years, played the EuroLeague in<br />
1996-97 and 1997-98, the Saporta Cup in 1999-2000<br />
(14.1 points and 6.9 rebounds) and the FIBA SuproLeague<br />
in 2000-01 (15.6 points, 6.7 rebounds). At the<br />
1999 EuroBasket in France, Vujcic made his debut with<br />
the Croatian national team (8.8 points and 2.8 boards)<br />
playing alongside his idol, Toni Kukoc.<br />
A Maccabi player, French champion<br />
In the summer <strong>of</strong> 2001, at 23 years old, Vujcic accepted<br />
an <strong>of</strong>fer from Maccabi Tel Aviv, where he was<br />
to fill in for Nate Huffman. But the American big man<br />
decided to stay one more season and so Maccabi decided<br />
to send Vujcic on loan to ASVEL Villeurbanne in<br />
France. The result was surprising for everyone: ASVEL<br />
won the French League for the first time in 21 years.<br />
In the quarterfinals, ASVEL eliminated Cholet 2-0. In<br />
the semis, it stopped Le Mans 2-1 and then swept the<br />
finals, too, against Pau-Orthez, 2-0. The best players<br />
for the champs were Yann Bonato, Kyle Hill, Reggie<br />
Freeman, Nikola Radulovic and the young rookie, Nikola<br />
Vujcic. Bogdan Tanjevic, the Montenegrin magician who<br />
had discovered many young talents – Nando Gentile,<br />
Dejan Bodiroga and Gregor Fucka, among others – also<br />
trusted Vujcic on that ASVEL team, and things worked<br />
out for both <strong>of</strong> them.<br />
Vujcic returned to Maccabi the following season,<br />
and he would play there for six campaigns, with his best<br />
years soon coinciding with a golden era for the Israeli<br />
club. Their first season didn’t go so well, as Maccabi<br />
finished second in its Top 16 group in 2002-03, with a<br />
4-2 record, after Benetton Treviso, who had won all six<br />
games including two against Maccabi (93-80 in Treviso<br />
despite Vujcic’s 28 points, and 84-83 in Tel Aviv). Vujcic,<br />
<strong>101</strong> greats <strong>of</strong> european basketball<br />
Nikola Vujcic<br />
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