JURE ZDOVC - 101 Greats of European Basketball

Jure
Zdovc
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The Golden
Slovenian
Slovenian basketball reserves its “greatest
of all time” title for the legendary Ivo
Daneu, but Jurij “Jure” Zdovc was not
far behind him. Those two, along with
Peter Vilfan and Borut Basin, are the best
Slovenian players of the last century, in
my opinion, while crossing into this one, we have had
the likes of Matjaz Smodis, Erazem Lorbek and Rasho
Nesterovic, without taking into account others who
are still active, such as Goran Dragic and, just getting
started, Luka Doncic.
The talent of Zdovc, a new gem from Slovenia,
caught the attention of the Yugoslav Federation’s
coaches early. By 1983, at age 16, Zdovc was playing
in the European Championship for Cadets in Tubingen,
Germany, where he won his first gold medal. Among his
teammates were future stars Zarko Paspalj, Ivo Nakic,
Branislav Prelevic, Luka Pavicevic and Ivica Mavrenski.
That very same year, Zdovc played at the junior World
Cup in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, as the youngest player
on the Yugoslav team. A year later, Zdovc played the European
Championship for Junior Men with almost the
same team, plus Velimir Perasovic, Miroslav Pecarski,
Franjo Arapovic and Ivica Zuric. They won the bronze
medal.
Champion without a medal
By the 1985-86 season, Zdovc was already an important
player for Olimpija Ljubljana. Two years later,
Coach Dusan Ivkovic took him to his first big competition
– the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea.
He came back with a silver medal. He shined at Euro-
Basket 1989 along with all the members of the “Yugoslav
Dream Team” – Drazen Petrovic, Vlade Divac, Toni
Kukoc, Dino Radja, Predrag Danilovic, Zarko Paspalj,
Zoran Cutura... In 1990 and with the same team, Yugoslavia
won the World Cup in Argentina and subsequently
got the gold medal at EuroBasket 1991 in Rome, Italy.
Zdovc, however, only played early in that tournament
and didn’t finish it with the team.
Politics caused one of the most curious scenarios in
basketball history. Yugoslavia arrived in Rome as the
favorite. Drazen Petrovic was missing, but Sasha Djordjevic
had joined the team. In three group stage games,
Yugoslavia recorded as many easy wins. Zdovc had 7
points against Bulgaria, 3 against Poland and 4 against
Spain. On July 26, 1991, the day before the semifinals,
Zdovc knocked on Dusan Ivkovic’s door. With tears in
his eyes, Zdovc told Ivkovic that the Slovenian government,
which declared independence from Yugoslavia
on July 25, had ordered him to leave the team. Yugoslavia
beat France in the semifinals and Italy in the title
game without much trouble, but without Zdovc. When
the medals were awarded on the podium, there was
one extra. Eleven players – all Serbian and Croatian,
but still all Yugoslavian – celebrated, but one medal
remained without its owner.
The story has a second chapter, some 14 years later.
On June 30, 2005, in the Slovenian capital, Zdovc, who
was already working as a head coach, was honored
for his playing career. On one side there was a “green”
team with Zmago Sagadin and Bozidar Maljkovic as
head coaches and Dusan Hauptman, Primoz Brezec,
Beno Udrih, Rasho Nesterovic, Sarunas Jasikevicius,
101 greats of european basketball
Jure Zdovc
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Vladimir Stankovic
Jiri Welsch, Marko Milic, Slavko Kotnik, Matjaz Tovornik,
Peter Vilfan and Radoslav Curcic as players. The “white”
team, coached by Dusan Ivkovic and Zeljko Obradovic,
featured Toni Kukoc, Vlade Divac, Dino Radja, Sasha
Djordjevic, Stojko Vrankovic, Predrag Danilovic, Velimir
Perasovic, Zarko Paspalj, Zoran Cutura, Dejan Bodiroga,
Richard Dacoury, Panagiotis Giannakis, Lefteris Kakiousis
and Roberto Brunamonti. Zdovc played one half
with each team. That is when Ivkovic awarded him his
EuroBasket 1991 gold medal. Better late than never...
Leader of the “miners”
Zdovc was a smart player. He had really quick hands,
was a safe ball-handler with a reliable shooting touch,
and, above all, was a great defensive player. He wasn’t
very attractive for fans, but he was perfect for any
coach. He wasn’t a pure scorer but could do it if his
team needed that. He was a point guard with very good
court vision and an excellent defender who was always
assigned to guard the best opposing guard.
When Bozidar Maljkovic started his first full season
with Limoges in the summer of 1992, the first player he
asked for was Zdovc, who had played for Kinder Bologna
the previous season. Limoges managed to sign him
and the great tandem Jure Zdovc and Michael Young
was born. Limoges was not even a favorite to reach
the Euroleague playoffs. Nonetheless, it managed to
get all the way to the Final Four in Athens – and win the
competition! To this date, it is still the biggest upset
in Euroleague history. Partizan had been a surprising
winner in 1992, but with a much more talented team
than Limoges. Maljkovic called his players at Limoges
“miners” as a way of comparing their hard work on the
court with the toughest work in a mine.
Zdovc also led Limoges to win the French League
title in 1993 and won it again with Racing Paris in 1997.
The three seasons in between those he played with
Greek side Iraklis. And after Paris, he played one year in
Turkey for Tofas Bursa (1997-98), came back to Olimpija
(1998-00), returned to Greece (Panionios, 2000-01),
rejoined Olimpija (2001-02) and went on to play for Slovan
(2002-03) before finishing his playing career with
Split in 2003-04 by winning the Croatian Cup.
A new generation
Zdovc started his coaching career with Split in
2004. His second step was coaching Sloven Ljubljana
and after that, he joined Iraklis before getting back to
“his” Olimpija in the 2006-07 season. Zdovc coached
Bosna in the 2007-08 season, returned to Ljubljana
from 2009 to 2011, then had Spartak St. Petersburg for
two seasons, reaching the EuroCup Final but losing to
Khimki Moscow Region on the latter’s home court. He
has since coached Gaziantep in Turkey, AEK Athens and
Cedevita Zagreb. He was also the Slovenian national
team head coach twice. The first stint was from 2008
to 2010, when the team reached the EuroBasket 2009
semifinals, but lost to Serbia in overtime in a game that
Slovenia had under control. The second was from 2014
to 2016, highlighted by a seventh-place finish at the
2014 World Cup.
Zdovc is a member of what is called the Yugoslav
coaching school. As a player, he had the luck to learn
from the best, like Dusan Ivkovic, Zmago Sagadin and
Bozidar Maljkovic. He played with Zeljko Obradovic at
the 1988 Olympic Games and the 1990 World Championships,
also with Drazen Petrovic, Divac, Kukoc, Radja,
Danilovic, Perasovic, Komazec, Cutura. He learned
a little bit of everything from his coaches and former
teammates and adapted that to his own basketball phi-
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League twice each, lifted three domestic cup trophies
and won the 2002 Adriatic League with Olimpija. As a
coach, he has already won the Slovenian and the Bosnian
League titles, lifted the Croatian Cup trophy and
taken three Slovenian Cup titles. His 2012 EuroCup
Finals qualification with Spartak marks his biggest
international result until now as a club coach. His first
great result, but not the last, for sure.
Jure Zdovc
losophy. He is one of the best coaches of a generation
that is, little by little, taking the baton from the old one
in European basketball. Zdovc, Perasovic, Djordjevic,
Luka Pavicevic – and that’s not even taking Zeljko Obradovic
into account – were all teammates on the great
Yugoslav national team who have become top-level
coaches.
As a player, Zdovc won European and World Championships,
reached the Olympic Games final, won the
EuroLeague once, the Slovenian League and the French
101 greats of european basketball
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