101 Greats of European Basketball

The legend of Split
In the world of basketball there are many players
who share the name, but among the greats – if I am
not mistaken – there are just two who are called
Dino. One is Meneghin, the other, Radja. Both are,
oddly enough, centers. When Dino Radja came into
the world in Split, Croatia on April 24, 1967, Meneghin
was already a pro player, a major prospect for
Ignis Varese and Italian basketball. Because Meneghin
had such a long career, the Dinos had time to face
each other in club domestic, EuroLeague and national
team competitions, in part due to Radja spending
three seasons in the Italian League before leaving for
the NBA to play with the Boston Celtics.
From the beginning of the 1960s until the mid-1990s,
Split was a great basketball center. The yellow jersey of
Jugoplastika has been worn by many greats over several
generations. The first great team there, coached by
Branko Radovic – who is considered the father of basketball
in Split – was formed by Petar Skansi, the three Tvrdic
brothers – Rato, Lovre and Drazen – Damir Solman,
Zdenko Prug and Mihajlo Manovic. After that, they had
Zeljko Jerkov, Duje Krstulovic, Ivica Dukan and Goran
Sobin. They led up to the generation of the likes of Radja,
Toni Kukoc, Zan Tabak, Velimir Perasovic and the others
who won three EuroLeague crowns in a row from 1989
to 1991, the first two of which came under the orders of
Boza Maljkovic, the creator of that great team.
When talking about the great Jugoplastika, the
names of Kukoc and Radja were almost always pronounced
together as the two main pillars on which the
success of that team was based. Radja is one year older
than Kukoc. He started playing at the humble KK Dalvin
club in Split, but as a junior he already made the jump to
Jugoplastika. By the 1983-84 season, he had played his
first minutes on the first team for Kreso Cosic, a great
former player and a not-so-great coach, but one who
had the courage and the eye to promote young talent
into the sport. Radja scored his first basket on December
15, 1984, in Belgrade against Partizan. After Cosic,
the Jugoplastika bench saw other names like Slavko
Trninic and Pino Grdovic (together) and later Zoran
Slavnic, who, true to his style, said: “Dino Radja will be a
miracle player.” Slavnic had said something similar, and
he had been absolutely right, a few years earlier about
a certain Drazen Petrovic, whom he trained in Sibenik.
Slavnic was right again.
The young center Radja progressed with giant steps.
His talent opened the doors of the national team, even
though he didn’t make the cut to be at the 1985 European
Championship for Cadets in Ruse, Bulgaria. There,
Vlade Divac, Kukoc, Nebojsa Ilic, Slavisa Koprivica and
Radenko Dobras started a path that would culminate
two years later at the 1987 U19 Basketball World Cup in
Bormio, Italy. Before that, however, for the 1986 European
Championship for Junior Men tourney in Gmunden,
Austria, Radja formed a duo with Divac as a key piece
of the team coached by Svetislav Pesic. Yugoslavia was
an even stronger team then – with new faces like Radja,
Aleksandar Djordjevic, Luka Pavicevic and Teoman
Alibegovic – and won another title. For the 1987 Euro-
Basket in Athens, Cosic called the four great prospects:
Kukoc, Divac, Djordjevic and Radja. They came back
home with the bronze medal and then, in August, went
back to their junior team for the U19 World Cup in Bormio.
There, they won the gold medal by twice beating
a great USA Team, coached by Larry Brown, with Kevin
101 greats of european basketball
Dino Radja
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