101 Greats of European Basketball

Playing for Tau, Rakocevic won the EuroLeague’s
Alphonso Ford Top Scorer Trophy twice, was chosen to
the 2008-09 All-Euroleague First Team and was chosen
as the weekly and monthly MVP several times. In Spain,
he helped Tau to lift the Spanish League trophy in 2007-
08 and the King’s Cup title in 2008-09. His personal
EuroLeague scoring record is 31 points and his highest
performance index rating was 36, both marks coming
against Virtus Rome in 2009. He also had 8 rebounds
in that game.
Once he parted ways with Tau, Rakocevic played
four more seasons – two with Efes Pilsen, one with
Montepaschi Siena and the final one, 2012-13, back at
Zvezda. His five years in Spain, however, were the best
in his career. He also played at the 2007 and 2008 Final
Fours with Tau, averaging 12.3 points in four games.
EuroLeague top scorer record
Rakocevic may have changed countries, but not
habits. With Efes, je won his third Alphonso Ford Top
Scorer Trophy, one more than any other player in the
award’s first 14 years. All told, he won national cup titles
in Yugoslavia, Serbia, Spain, Italy and Turkey; was a
league champ in Yugoslavia, Spain and Italy; and lifted
several supercup trophies. The only failure in his career
was the 2005 EuroBasket, played in Serbia & Montenegro.
Rakocevic and the host team were expected to win
the gold medal but ended up being eliminated in the
Play-off stage by France, with Tony Parker and Antoine
Rigaudeau as leaders.
Rakocevic played a total of 159 EuroLeague games
over nine seasons and finished with a scoring average
of 14.6 points. Only one player has played more than
150 EuroLeague games this century with a higher scoring
average: Marcus Brown (179 games, 15.3 ppg.).
For some people, Rakocevic was selfish sometimes,
but I don’t know any great scorers without a little bit
of selfishness. Those who shoot best and score more
always have had the right to shoot more and even
miss some shots because their points help teams win
games many more times than their mistakes cost their
teams losses.
Teammates often look for the best player to take
responsibility – and Igor Rakocevic was always there
to take the big shot. That was Igor Rakocevic as a
basketball player: a natural-born winner, a killer on
the court and an ambitious all-around player. He was
a shooter above all but could offer many other things
to his teams.
101 greats of european basketball
Igor Rakocevic
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