101 Greats of European Basketball

Blocks master
The year was 1987. The place was Pula, on
the coast of Croatia’s Istria peninsula.
The event was a FIBA youth camp. The
main teaching guest was the great Sergei
Belov. The protagonists were young
talents from all over Europe. Current
Philadelphia 76ers scout Marin Sedlacek, one of the
coaches at that camp and a long-time coach of the
World Select Team at the annual Nike Hoop Summit,
highlighted two kids from the class of 1987: Zeljko
Rebraca and Dragan Tarlac.
“I cannot say for sure that back then if you could
clearly see that they would be future European and
world champs, or players that would end up in the NBA,
but it was clear they had good predispositions,” Sedlacek
told me later. “Tarlac caught everyone’s attention
more because he was stronger, while Rebraca was
pretty thin and his body didn’t show that he could do
big things in basketball. But with years of great work,
he managed to earn his place in basketball. Back then,
at 15 years old, he was taller than 2 meters and had a
knack for blocking shots. I was impressed with the ease
with which he blocked the shots of stronger rivals. He
had great timing for when to jump and long hands.”
Zeljko Rebraca, who was born April 9, 1972, in Prigrevica,
Serbia, was not an unknown player at 15 years
old. He played in OKK Apatin and his first coach was
Vlado Tasevski. When he turned 16, Rebraca moved to
Novi Sad to try his luck on bigger teams. Talent scouting
in the former Yugoslavia worked well, so it was unusual
that good talent went unnoticed. For the FIBA European
Championship for Junior Men in 1990, in the Netherlands,
coach Dusko Vujosevic gathered a solid team,
including Dejan Bodiroga, Velko Mrsic, Nikola Loncar, Roman
Horvat, Mladjan Silobad, Rebraca and Tarlac, among
others. The team finished fifth, with losses against
Romania with Gheorghe Muresan, Spain with Alfonso
Reyes, and Poland with Maciej Zielinski. But most of all it
gained players, especially Bodiroga, Tarlac and Rebraca,
three future European and world champions. The same
coach used almost the same team the following year to
play the 1991 FIBA World Championship for Junior Men
in Edmonton, Canada. Yugoslavia would finish fourth as
Rebraca raised his numbers from 5.9 points in the Netherlands
to 9.1 points per game in Canada.
During the 1990-91 season, Sasha Djordjevic, the
point guard for Partizan and the national team, served in
the military in Novi Sad. From time to time he practiced
with the NAP team, a humble club at which two future
world champs took their first steps: Rebraca (in 1998)
and Milan Gurovic (2002). With the great nose of a future
coach, Djordjevic sensed the huge potential in Rebraca
and secretly took him to two practices with Partizan –
Novi Sad is only 70 kilometers from Belgrade – and recommended
that the club sign him. Said and done.
“One day, without permission from the military authorities,
I escaped by car from Novi Sad with Rebraca,”
Djordjevic recalled to me. “We sent a message to his
coach saying he was sick. I was sure he was a future star.”
In that summer of 1991, Rebraca, who was just 19
years old, signed with Partizan. Nobody expected a lot
from him because of his young age and his inexperience,
but a debut coach – Zeljko Obradovic – and a legend
who happened to be his consultant – Aleksandar
Nikolic – saw a future superstar in the thin kid. Rebraca
soon made it into the starting five with Djordjevic, Pre-
101 greats of european basketball
Zeljko Rebraca
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