101 Greats of European Basketball

of the modern era. (Two experimental Final Fours had
taken place back in 1966 – won by Milano – and in 1967
– won by Real Madrid). After a round-robin phase with
eight teams, Partizan – with Vlade Divac, Sasha Djordjevic,
Zarko Paspalj and Zeljko Obradovic – reached the
Final Four in Ghent as leaders with 10 wins and 4 losses.
Galis and Panagiotis Giannakis took Aris to 9-5 to
finish second in a tiebreaker over Tracer Milano – with
Mike D’Antoni, Dino Meneghin, Rickey Brown, Premier
and McAdoo. Maccabi, led by Miki Berkowitz, Doron
Jamchy, Kevin Magee and Ken Barlow, finished fourth
with an 8-6 record. In the semifinals, Maccabi defeated
Partizan 97-82 and Tracer defeated Aris by the same
score. In the big final, a brilliant McAdoo (25 points, 12
rebounds) led Tracer to another win over Maccabi.
McAdoo played in Milan until 1990. The following
two years, he played in Forli with averages of 31.7 points
and 9.6 rebounds. He put an end to his career with
Teamsystem Fabriano in 1992-93 at 42 years old. Over
seven seasons in Italy, he played 201 games, scored
5,427 points (27.3 ppg.) and averaged 9.0 boards per
game. He won the Italian League twice, the Italian Cup
once and one Intercontinental Cup – all with Milano.
Bob McAdoo was not very tall. At 2.06 meters, he
was more of a power forward than a center, and sometimes
he played small forward because he had good
shooting skills, including from three-point range. He
was also a great rebounder, showing skills that nobody
had seen until then.
Many believe that the NBA was not fair when, for the
league’s 50th anniversary, McAdoo was left out of its
list of the 50 greatest players. In 2000, he was inducted
into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in
Springfield. And in 2008, when celebrating the 50th
anniversary of European competitions, Euroleague
Basketball chose him among the 35 players to have
contributed most to the game on the Old Continent. On
that occasion, McAdoo said:
“Being here is a fantastic honor. When I heard about
it, I jumped off my chair because I remember my time in
Italy as fantastic. As a matter of fact, I loved my Italian
stay probably better than my NBA stay for 14 years.
It is a great honor for me and I am proud to be here. I
remember the two European Cup championship games
against Maccabi Tel Aviv, they were very tough games.
The evolution of European basketball has been tremendous
since I last played here. For instance, when you
look at the last Olympics, the Italian national team got
the silver medal. A lot of European players make major
contributions in the NBA these days, too.”
McAdoo later won three more NBA titles – in 2006,
2012 and 2013 – as an assistant coach with the Miami
Heat, a position he held for 18 years.
101 greats of european basketball
Bob McAdoo
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