101 Greats of European Basketball

Vladimir Stankovic
utes. It was the European final with the most points,
230. With its 117 points, Madrid matched the record of
Partizan against Bosna in the 1978 Korac Cup final, but
that was broken later when Maccabi Tel Aviv scored 118
points in the 2004 EuroLeague championship game.
“It was an impressive game, an offensive feast, a
true show,” Rogers recalled. “Fernando Martin played
slightly injured and Drazen had to pull the wagon and
he did it in unforgettable fashion. Some criticized him
for being egocentric, but he did what he had to do. Drazen
was a great player, a natural-born winner. We beat
a great opponent that had a great team, not only Oscar.
Nando Gentile also hit 34 points that night.”
Despite his good year with Los Blancos, Johnny
Rogers didn’t stay in Madrid. His next stop would be
Pamesa Valencia. After a good season there (20.5
points) he played little in the following campaign due to
an injury. At the end of the season he signed for Philips
Milan and there, with Mike D’Antoni as head coach, Rogers
changed positions. Until then, he had played small
forward, making use of his excellent outside shot to
hurt rivals. But D’Antoni’s idea was to get Rogers closer
to the rim. Rogers was a modern player, versatile, capable
of running, jumping and scoring, almost the ideal
player for any coach. He also had a fighting character
and never played bad games. You could always expect
something from Rogers: points, rebounds, big shots,
fastbreaks and, many times, a good combination of all
of the above.
In the 1991-92 season, Philips had a good team –
Antonello Riva, Darryl Dawkins, Riccardo Pittis, Davide
Pessina and Rogers – and reached the EuroLeague Final
Four in Istanbul. But in the semifinals, it lost to Partizan
for the third time that season, although that was not
the biggest disappointment in Rogers’ career. After two
more years in Italy with Varese and Forli, and three more
in Spain with Murcia, Caceres and, again, Valencia, in
the summer of 1997 and with the title of “best Spanish
player of the season”, he joined the European champs.
He flew to Greece and signed with Olympiacos. He was
34 years old, but the best was yet to come.
Two titles with Panathinaikos
At Olympiacos, Rogers met Dusan Ivkovic and his
assistant, Milan Minic, the most important coaches,
together with Zeljko Obradovic, that Rogers would have
by the end of his career:
“I learned something from each coach I had, but
these three, together with my father Clifford, who
played college ball and was a coach after that, were the
ones that helped me the most,” says Rogers.
It was during his time at Olympiacos, from 1997 to
1999, that Rogers has the memory of his most painful
loss, which came in the fifth game of the final playoffs
series of the Greek League against archrival Panathinaikos.
Olympiacos was playing at home in front of its
fans, who were preparing a big celebration, but it was
not to be.
At 36 years old, when most players think about putting
an end to their careers, Rogers received an offer
from ... Panathinaikos! Obradovic, who had recently
arrived from Benetton Treviso, had started to build a
team to win the EuroLeague and reached the conclusion
that he needed an experienced player at power
forward. He wanted someone who could contribute
without needing a lot of minutes, a role that Johnny
Rogers fit perfectly.
“In Panathinaikos, I met many players whom I had
played against throughout my career: with Gentile I had
fought in that final in Athens; against Zeljko Rebraca
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