101 Greats of European Basketball

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The Holy Hand
FIBA used to run a competition, the Intercontinental
Cup, that existed between 1966 and
1982 and made a brief revival recently. South
American champion Sirio de Sao Paulo, Brazil
faced EuroLeague winner Bosna Sarajevo
in the 1979 title game. Sirio won 100-96 in
overtime at home in Sao Paulo, which led to a big oncourt
celebration, Brazilian style. Oscar Schmidt was
20 years old back then and finished the game with
42 points, shocking head coach Bogdan Tanjevic of
Bosna with his extraordinary talent. Decades later,
Tanjevic told me a fact from that game.
“Never before or since in my entire life did I see
a player who played a great game even though he
couldn’t stop ... crying,” Tanjevic said. “Bosna, my
team, led for almost 35 minutes and Oscar was crying
for real because he thought that the world champion
title was slipping away from him in front of his fans.
He forced overtime and single-handedly beat us in
the extra period. That is when I decided that if I ever
coached a team outside Yugoslavia, he would be one
of my foreign players – Oscar Schmidt. His talent was
beyond all doubt and those tears of his proved his
winning mentality.”
Tanjevic moved to Indesit Caserta in 1982 and kept
his own promise by signing Oscar Schmidt along with
a Serbian point guard, veteran Zoran “Moka” Slavnic.
Tanjevic was known throughout his career for having
the courage to give playing time to very young players
like Mirza Delibasic, Ratko Radovanovic, Nando Gentile,
Dejan Bodiroga and Gregor Fucka. Now, he had brought
an outstanding young player to Caserta. Schmidt would
become a fan idol for eight years, a relentless scorer,
a truly one-of-a-kind player who, with all respect to
Caserta, deserved to play on a European superpower.
Tanjevic has an explanation for Schmidt’s loyalty: “Oscar
is a very honest man. He was thankful to me, the
club and to an entire city that welcomed him with open
arms. He had offers to go to other clubs but stayed
there for eight years.”
Mano Santa
Oscar Daniel Bezerra Schmidt was born on February
16, 1958, into a family with German origins in Natal,
capital of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.
He started playing for Palmeiras at age 16. He went
to his first major international competition, the 1978
World Cup in Manila, the Philippines, still as a Palmeiras
player. Brazil finished third and young Oscar was the
second-best scorer on the team with 159 points (17.7
per game), right behind Marcel de Souza, who had 189
points (18.9 ppg.). Schmidt signed for Sirio right after
the World Cup and, as mentioned, won the Intercontinental
Cup in 1979. I saw him live for the first time at
the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. It was the first of
his five Olympics appearances. I also followed him at
Los Angeles 1984, Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996 and
at the 1990 World Cup in Argentina. Tanjevic places
Oscar among the “best three offensive players of all
time,” and I fully agree with him. Oscar Schmidt’s nickname
was Mano Santa - Holy Hand - and it was more
than justified: he shot and scored with fascinating ease.
The Brazilian press nicknamed him “basketball’s Pele”.
He surely was not the most all-around player, but if we
speak about shooting, I really don’t know whom I would
rank over him.
101 greats of european basketball
Oscar Schmidt
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