JIRI ZIDEK JR. - 101 Greats of European Basketball

Jiri
Zidek Jr.
411

Family matters
For the only time in these 101 chapters of the
great players of the past, a name gets repeated:
Jiri Zidek. I will not be writing about
the same player twice, but rather about a
father and son who carry that same name.
Jiri Zidek Sr. was a great player in Czechoslovakia
and one of the best big men in Europe during the
1960s and 1970s.
On April 17, 1969, his team Slavia Prague defeated
Dinamo Tbilisi in the Cup Champions Cup final, 80-74.
Zidek scored 15 points. Exactly 30 years later, to the
week, his son Jiri Zidek Jr. won the EuroLeague title
with Zalgiris Kaunas by defeating Kinder Bologna, 82-
74. Zidek scored 12 points. If memory serves, it is the
only case ever in European basketball of a father and
son both winning international club trophies as players.
Debut against ... dad
The story of the Zideks has some more interesting
details. Following his father’s footsteps, young Jiri
grabbed the ball at five years old. His first coach was
Jindrich Zeman, well known because of his work with
young talents. When he turned 14, Zidek’s coach was
Rene Stepanek, who helped him improve his technique.
It was then that tragedy struck when Zidek’s mother
died. According to Zidek himself, that fact had a major
influence on his exclusive dedication to basketball and
school, where he was always the best student.
At 16 years old, Zidek already practiced with the
Sparta Prague senior team. His debut in that category
was against Slavia, coached by his father and where
his elder brother also played. In the last seconds, with
a tie on the scoreboard, young Jiri scored the decisive
basket to give the win to Sparta. For the media, it was
the perfect story: the son beats his father with a basket
in the last second.
Just when everything looked perfect, Jiri suffered a
back injury. He had to go to the United States to undergo
treatment. He stopped for six months and missed
the FIBA European Championship for Junior Men, but
his name was already on the lists of many teams and
scouts. Zidek got offers from several good universities,
but he chose UCLA because of a Slovakian family there
that his father knew. The Schultz family helped him a
lot to integrate into a new country. On the sports side,
however, things didn’t go well. He played little. UCLA
head coach Jim Harrick didn’t believe much in him. In
his first two seasons, Zidek’s numbers were quite discreet:
1.1 points in 1991-92, 2.4 in 1992-93.
In his third year at UCLA, things started to change.
Zidek’s effort and sacrifice in practice was rewarded
with a place among the starters in a game at the beginning
of the season. He responded with 16 points and 10
rebounds, and never left the starting five after that. He
finished that season with averages of 11.1 points and
7 rebounds in 28 games, but the best was yet to come.
NCAA and EuroLeague champion
During the 1994-95 season, his last at UCLA, Zidek
averaged 10.6 points and 5.4 rebounds. His team won
the NCAA title by beating the Arkansas Razorbacks 89-
79 in the final with Ed O’Bannon as the star (20 points,
17 rebounds). Zidek remembers the event at the Kingdome
in Seattle as something unbelievable: “It was an
incredible atmosphere: 20,000 people came to watch
the practices and 45,000 to the games.”
101 greats of european basketball
Jiri Zidek Jr.
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Vladimir Stankovic
In the summer of 1995, Zidek was selected in the
NBA Draft by the Charlotte Hornets with the 22nd pick
of the first round. His first season didn’t go bad at all: he
played 71 games averaging 4 points and 2.6 rebounds,
but a lot of changes on the team affected his role. During
the 1996-97 season, after 36 games with Charlotte, he
was traded to the Denver Nuggets and played a total
of 52 games between them, with similar numbers. In
1997-98, he played sparingly with both Denver and Seattle,
after which he decided to return to Europe.
“I didn’t have many opportunities, because the
rosters of the European teams were closed,” Zidek
recalled. “Then Sarunas Marciulionis called me, saying
that Zalgiris needed a center, but also was looking for a
point guard. I recommended Tyus Edney, my teammate
at UCLA. Fortunately, they accepted. And that’s how
Tyus and I got together again. I wasn’t in top shape after
not playing much the previous two years, but Zalgiris
had a lot of patience.”
The team didn’t begin the EuroLeague well, losing
99-84 at Fenerbahce on the way to a 1-2 record. But after
that, Zalgiris won 11 of its next 12 games to become
a contender. It later swept two other Turkish teams,
Ulker and Efes, to reach the Final Four.
Once in Munich, as something of an underdog,
Zalgiris surprised its opponents early. In the semifinal,
after leading 48-33 at halftime, Zalgiris downed Olympiacos
87-71 with Anthony Bowie scoring 19 points,
while Zidek had 9 points and 5 rebounds in 19 minutes.
In the final, Zalgiris faced defending champion Kinder
Bologna, and it was the same story. Up 45-30 after the
first 20 minutes, Zalgiris fought off a Kinder comeback
attempt to win 82-74. Bowie again paced the winners
with 17 points, while Zidek added 12 points and 6 rebounds
in 23 minutes. Making it look easier than most
Final Four champions, Zalgiris lifted the first – and still
only – EuroLeague title by a Lithuanian club.
“The final was straight from out of a movie, and ended
with the EuroLeague title,” Zidek says. “The funny
thing was the way we prepared for the Final Four. Coach
Jonas Kazlauskas gave us a lot of time to rest, and he
let us have our wives or girlfriends with us. Unforgettable.
We had a great atmosphere on the team, without
any jealousy between the players.”
It was a team that featured very good Lithuanians –
Saulius Stombergas, Eurelijus and Mindaugas Zukauskas,
Tomas Masiulis, Darius Maskoliunas and Kestutis
Sestokas – and great foreigners in Edney, Bowie and
Zidek. The team’s top scorer was Bowie with 14 points
per game, while Masiulis was the best rebounder at 5.9
on average. Zidek finished with 8.6 points and 4.7 rebounds
in 18.1 minutes per game. His top scoring performance
was 17 points against Crvena Zvezda, while
he pulled down 10 rebounds against both Tau Ceramica
and Varese. Not only did Zidek win the title his father
had missed in the 1966 final with Slavia Prague, but he
became the first European to win both the EuroLeague
and NCAA titles.
After winning the EuroLeague title, much of the Zalgiris
team left. Zidek began the next season in Kaunas
but finished it with Ulker. He then played for Real Madrid
in the inaugural EuroLeague game of the new century,
averaging 6.3 points and 2.3 rebounds over 15 games
that season. His next stops were ALBA Berlin and
Prokom Trefl Sopot, before he finished his career with
Czech club Nymburk between 2003 and 2005. Zidek
stayed to help the young players and the club become
something more serious, and he highlights the role of
club president Miroslav Jansta in making that happen
as the most influential person in Czech basketball in
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the new century. In his last two seasons, playing for
Nymburk in the FIBA Europa League, Zidek averaged
almost 18 points and 7 rebounds, showing clearly that
he could still perform. Still, multiple injuries to his left
knee forced him to end his career at age 32.
A commentator on Euroleague.TV
What was lacking in the younger Zidek’s career, as
opposed to his father’s, was a big result with the Czech
national team, as he didn’t have the luck to reach the
biggest events. In the preliminary phase of the 1999
EuroBasket, Zidek averaged 25.5 points and 11.5 rebounds,
but the team missed the big event. And the
Czech Republic also missed the 2001 and 2003 continental
championships.
Zidek was an able player for his size, 2.12 meters,
with good skill, strength and rebounding instincts.
He was also a player who coaches appreciated: not a
superstar, but he always played at a high level. Very
few times after a game could anyone say that Jiri Zidek
didn’t play well. His grades were “good, very good and
excellent”. His father, as I recall, had it easier scoring,
but the son was stronger physically.
For many years now, Zidek has been a regular color
commentator on Euroleague.TV, offering his deep
knowledge and enthusiasm for basketball. Little by
little, he has become one of the true voices of European
basketball. As such, the Zidek name continues in our
sport.
101 greats of european basketball
Jiri Zidek Jr.
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