101 Greats of European Basketball

The Macedonian
pearl
If someone were to ask me who was the best Macedonian
player of all time, my initial debate would be
between Blagoja Georgijevski and Petar Naumoski.
The former was the leader of a great Rabotnicki
team during the 1970s. He played in the Olympics
twice with Yugoslavia (1972 and 1976) and was also
the all-time top scorer for Rabotnicki (4,500 points
in the national league).
Naumoski, meanwhile, had a great career at the club
level, played for several great teams in Europe and won
five European trophies. He also participated in several
FIBA all-star games. If I had to choose, I would probably
go with Naumoski, because of his international success
and his 24 titles won in Yugoslavia, Turkey and Italy.
Maljkovic, the prophet
Petar Naumoski – Peca for his friends – was born on
August 27, 1968, in Prilep, a town located in southern
FYROM, some 130 kilometers away from the capital,
Skopje. At 16 years old he was already playing with
Rabotnicki Skopje, the best Macedonian team in the Yugoslav
League for many years. Standing at 1.94 meters
in the younger categories, he used to play both guard
positions as well as small forward. His natural place
was playmaker, however, because of his ball control and
court vision. He could also play shooting guard easily,
thanks to his great shot. He was a natural talent, one of
many to come out of Yugoslavia, but he never played on
the cadet or junior national teams.
Boza Maljkovic arrived in Split to build the great Jugoplastika
teams based on the talent of Toni Kukoc, Dino
Radja, Zan Tabak and others, but from the start, he
knew he’d have to go fishing in waters away from Split.
That’s how Dusko Ivanovic of Buducnost Podgorica
arrived with his experience, and how Zoran Sretenovic
from Crvena Zvezda and Luka Pavicevic from Cibona
Zagreb came to play point guard. Later came Zoran
Savic from Zenica and Aramis Naglic from Rijeka. They
all played right away, but Maljkovic was always looking
ahead and took note of youngsters who had promising
futures and would be called to take over eventually.
That’s how Split welcomed a young forward from Montenegro,
Velibor-Borko Radovic, and a young guard
from Macedonia named Petar Naumoski.
The two youngsters’ names appear in the Jugoplastika
roster that won the EuroLeague in 1990 and 1991,
both times against FC Barcelona in the final, but their
contribution was merely symbolic. From the bench,
they enjoyed the play of their teammates, gained experience
and got ready to step in a couple years later.
Naumoski’s discoverer, Maljkovic, told me that Peca
was a unique case:
“I told him: ‘You will be practicing hard, almost eight
hours a day, but you will not be playing.’ And he just agreed
to it,” Maljkovic says. “I never knew of a similar case, a
player willing to work hard without playing. But Naumoski
was self-confident and he took the situation as an investment.
In practice, he was fantastic. He won all one-on-one
situations, had a great shot, and I just knew he would be
one of the best point guards in Europe. I am proud that I
could see his talent when he was an unknown young kid.”
Then, during the autumn of 1991, the war broke out
in former Yugoslavia. Jugoplastika, as a multi-ethnic
team, just disintegrated. Players from outside Croatia,
101 greats of european basketball
Petar Naumoski
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