101 Greats of European Basketball

The rebel
genius
I
guess that for many basketball lovers, the name
of Ljubodrag “Duci” Simonovic does not mean a
lot. However, those whose memory reaches back
to the 1970s will surely remember a great player
whose brilliant talent clashed with his strong personality
and ideas, a combination that shortened
a career that could have been much bigger. In the
world of basketball, there are many players with university
degrees and, in this respect, Duci Simonovic
is not an exception. He got a degree in law at 23 years
old and later he added a Ph.D. in philosophy. This is
his story.
The second FIBA European Championship for Junior
Men took place in Porto San Giorgio, Italy, in 1966. Ranko
Zeravica, the coach of the Yugoslav national team,
had a golden generation on his hands: Kresimir Cosic,
Dragan Kapicic, Damir Solman, Aljosa Zorga, Bogdan
Tanjevic, Mihajlo Manovic and a certain Duci Simonovic,
a 17-year-old from the humble second-division team of
Sloga Kraljevo. The flawless scouting of the federation
never let any talent go undiscovered. Yugoslavia ended
up finishing second, but Zeravica knew that he had a lot
of potential in a team that just needed some time.
World champ at 21
The following year, Duci, who was born on January
1, 1949, in Vrnjacka Banja, arrived in Belgrade to study
law and signed for Crvena Zvezda. He also made his debut
for the senior national team at the Mediterranean
Games in Tunisia. A strong team with veteran players
like Vladimir Cvetkovic, Rato Tvrdic and Petar Skansi,
plus young talent in Cosic, Nikola Plecas, Solman, Zorga
and Simonovic, had an easy path to the gold medal. It
was the first one in Simonovic’s career.
That same year, Zeravica some of this young team –
including Cosic, Kapicic, Solman, Zorga and Simonovic
– to the 1967 EuroBasket in Helsinki. But this time the
result was not good at all. Yugoslavia, the runner-up
in the previous edition, finished in ninth place this
time. The press blamed it on Zeravica, who reacted by
changing his choice of players for the 1968 Olympics
in Mexico. Veterans like Ivo Daneu, Radivoje Korac and
Cvetkovic would be in command of the team this time,
their experience seconded by that of Trajko Rajkovic,
Dragutin Cermak, Dragoslav Raznatovic and Petar
Skansi. Among the youngsters, Zeravica brought only
Cosic, Solman, Plecas and Zorga. Simonovic had to stay
home. That team won the country’s first Olympics basketball
medal, a silver, after defeating the USSR in the
semifinals with two historic free throws by Cvetkovic
with 3 seconds to go.
In the Yugoslav League of 1968-69, Crvena Zvezda
took the title with Cvetkovic, Kapicic, Moka Slavnic and
Dragisa Vucinic as leaders. The national team was back
for the 1969 EuroBasket in Naples, Italy, and with it Simonovic.
three years after winning the silver medal as
a junior, Duci won another silver with the men’s senior
national team at barely 20 years old.
The peak of Simonovic’s career came at the 1970
World Cup in Ljubljana. Zeravica, true to his vision, took
several youngsters with him: Cosic, Simonovic, Plecas,
Solman, Zorga and Vinko Jelovac, all of them born in
1948 or 1949 – the same group that had failed at the
Helsinki EuroBasket. Zeravica mixed them with veter-
101 greats of european basketball
Ljubodrag Simonovic
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