JIRI ZIDEK - 101 Greats of European Basketball
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Jiri<br />
Zidek<br />
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A Czech<br />
legend<br />
The name certainly sounds familiar. Jiri<br />
Zidek has been a colleague <strong>of</strong> mine, working<br />
as a columnist for Euroleague.net and<br />
as a color commentator on Euroleague.<br />
TV. He is also one <strong>of</strong> the few men – and<br />
the first <strong>European</strong> – to have won both the<br />
NCAA Tournament and the EuroLeague championship,<br />
with UCLA in 1995 and Zalgiris in 1999, respectively.<br />
It’s true that Zidek certainly deserves his own<br />
place among the greats, due to his many great accomplishments.<br />
But first I wish to write about another Jiri<br />
Zidek, his father.<br />
Exactly 30 years before Jiri Zidek Jr.’s success with<br />
Zalgiris in Munich back in 1999, Jiri Zidek Sr won the<br />
Saporta Cup title with his team, Slavia Prague. Dinamo<br />
Tbilisi, representing the Soviet Union, and Slavia, representing<br />
Czechoslovakia, played the title game on April<br />
17, 1969. Slavia won 80-74. As far as I know, the Zideks<br />
are the only case in which a father and son have won a<br />
title in <strong>European</strong> club competitions. A year before that,<br />
Zidek Sr. was the star <strong>of</strong> a historic game – the 1968 Saporta<br />
Cup final in Athens, Greece on April 4, 1968. Slavia<br />
faced AEK at Panathinaiko Stadium. Officially, it was a<br />
sellout <strong>of</strong> 52,880, but most reports claim there were<br />
between 60,000 and 80,000 fans on hand if you count<br />
those who cheered from outside because they couldn’t<br />
make it into the stadium. AEK beat Slavia 89-82 to win<br />
the first <strong>European</strong> title for a Greek basketball club, but<br />
the star <strong>of</strong> the game was Zidek Sr., who scored 31 points.<br />
Slavia, a team full <strong>of</strong> Jiris<br />
Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia on February 8,<br />
1944, Zidek Sr. spent the best and biggest part <strong>of</strong> his<br />
career with Slavia, a team that had a great sporting<br />
rivalry with Spartak Brno to be the best in the country<br />
throughout the 1960s and the 1970s. Slavia was<br />
known as “The Jiris” because many times its starting<br />
five featured Jiri Ruzicka, Jiri Stasny, Jiri Ammer, Jiri<br />
Zednicek and Jiri Zidek, with Jiri Konopasek coming<br />
<strong>of</strong>f the bench. Spartak was represented by Kamil Brabenec,<br />
Zdenek and Jan Bobrovsky, Vladimir Pistalek,<br />
Frantisek Konvicka, Frantisek Pokorny and Zdenek<br />
Konecny. All <strong>of</strong> them played together on a strong<br />
Czechoslovakian national team that won the silver<br />
medal at the 1967 EuroBasket in Helsinki, Finland.<br />
Czechoslovakia was defeated by the Soviet Union, 87-<br />
79, in the title game, but Zidek had 23 points against<br />
giants like Vladimir Andreev and Alzhan Zarmuhamedov.<br />
Zidek averaged 13.8 points in that tournament.<br />
Two years later, Czechoslovakia won the bronze medal<br />
at the 1969 EuroBasket in Naples, Italy, with Zidek averaging<br />
12.6 points.<br />
Zidek was the top scorer (18.6 ppg.) at the 1970<br />
World Cup in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia. He scored even<br />
more (20.4 ppg.) at the 1971 EuroBasket in Essen, West<br />
Germany, and enjoyed a strong performance (12.7 ppg.,<br />
4.8 rebounds) at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.<br />
Overall, Zidek played 257 games with the Czechoslovakian<br />
national team. There is no evidence <strong>of</strong> how many<br />
points he scored with his national team, but in a phone<br />
conversation, Zidek Sr. gave me rough numbers <strong>of</strong> his<br />
great career:<br />
• Played pr<strong>of</strong>essional basketball for 18 years.<br />
• Scored an estimated 13,000 points.<br />
• Won six league titles with Slavia.<br />
<strong>101</strong> greats <strong>of</strong> european basketball<br />
Jiri Zidek<br />
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Vladimir Stankovic<br />
• Was the Czechoslovakian League’s scoring champion<br />
10 times and averaged around 30 points.<br />
• His single-best scoring game was 68 points<br />
against Olomouc.<br />
That Slavia squad boasted a powerful team able to<br />
beat anyone. For instance, Zidek Sr. scored 35 points<br />
against Real Madrid in the 1965-66 season, 36 against<br />
Simmenthal Milano and did even better against Belgian<br />
side Racing – 40 points in Belgium and 48 at home! He<br />
tallied 54 points in another game against Madrid. That<br />
season, Zidek led Slavia to the first-ever Final Four, host<br />
by FIBA in Bologna, Italy. Slavia suffered a 77-72 loss<br />
to Simmenthal in the final despite 20 points by Zidek.<br />
At the end <strong>of</strong> the season, Zidek was named a member<br />
<strong>of</strong> the <strong>European</strong> continental team for 1966. In another<br />
Final Four played in Madrid, Spain, in 1967, Slavia once<br />
again lost against Simmenthal Milano, 103-97, in the<br />
semifinals. Slavia managed to beat Olimpija Ljubljana<br />
88-83 in the third-place game.<br />
An atypical center<br />
At 2.06 meters tall and based on today’s standards,<br />
Zidek Sr. was more a forward than a center, but he<br />
played in the “five” position and successfully fought<br />
against taller opponents. His best weapons were the<br />
fundamentals. He was a talented player who could hit<br />
both his outside jumper and a hard-to-guard hook shot.<br />
Zidek was also a great rebounder and had the spirit <strong>of</strong><br />
a natural fighter.<br />
Zidek Sr. told me that back in 1968, the Boston Celtics<br />
showed interest in him, but it was impossible and<br />
unthinkable for him to get out <strong>of</strong> Czechoslovakia. “I had<br />
many <strong>of</strong>fers from the biggest clubs in Europe, but we<br />
lived in the communist era, without personal freedom.<br />
Getting out <strong>of</strong> the country in a legal way was almost<br />
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impossible,” Zidek Sr. said. He was one <strong>of</strong> the true <strong>European</strong><br />
basketball legends in the 1960s and the 1970s.<br />
After playing one season for Olomouc, he was granted<br />
permission to work outside his country and finished<br />
his brilliant career in Finland. At age 38, Zidek Sr. was a<br />
player-coach with Forza Alku for two seasons.<br />
He remembers well his battles in the paint against<br />
Dino Meneghin, Kreso Cosic, Clifford Luyk and Trajko<br />
Rajkovic. Zidek Sr. spoke with me about the great Ivo<br />
Daneu, his rivalry against CSKA that went beyond<br />
sports, and especially, about his great friendship with<br />
Radivoj Korac, who tragically passed away in a car crash<br />
in 1969. When I asked him why there are no great basketball<br />
players in the Czech Republic like in the old days,<br />
Zidek didn’t have a clear answer. “Maybe it is because<br />
basketball is not as popular as football and ice hockey,”<br />
he said. “There is not enough money for basketball.<br />
Maybe players lack that passion for basketball nowadays.”<br />
But <strong>of</strong> course, that is changing, as the Czechs<br />
had a new EuroLeague champion, Jan Vesely, with Fenerbahce<br />
Istanbul in 2017.<br />
Jiri Zidek Jr. managed to achieve a lot <strong>of</strong> the things<br />
Jiri Zidek Sr. couldn’t do. Zidek Jr. won the EuroLeague<br />
title, played three years in the NBA and wore the jerseys<br />
<strong>of</strong> <strong>European</strong> basketball powerhouses like Zalgiris and<br />
Real Madrid, one <strong>of</strong> the dreams that his father had. But<br />
if I had to choose one <strong>of</strong> them – with all due respect to<br />
my friend Jiri Jr. – I would choose Zidek Sr., considered<br />
by many as the best Czech player <strong>of</strong> all-time.<br />
Jiri Zidek Sr, a Czech legend.<br />
Jiri Zidek<br />
<strong>101</strong> greats <strong>of</strong> european basketball<br />
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