101 Greats of European Basketball

The humble champ
Imagine this team for just a moment: Marko Jaric,
Gordan Giricek, Rimantas Kaukenas, Igor Rakocevic,
Ramunas Siskauskas, Dirk Nowitzki, Jorge
Garbajosa, Matjaz Smodis, Hedo Turkoglu, Mehmet
Okur, Jaka Lakovic, Darius Songaila. Twelve
Europeans in the NBA? Not exactly. Some of them
never got to play there. A European all-star team, you
might ask? Could have been, but it wasn’t. A list of
great talents during the turn of the century? That’s
also a possible reading, but no. That was the excellent
generation of the European Championship for Men 22
and Under, played in 1998 in Trapani, Italy. All of these
excellent players, future stars, played for their national
teams in the tournament. There are even more
names, too: Dimos Dikoudis, Primoz Brezec, Kestutis
Sestokas, Marko Pesic, Jovo Stanojevic and Kerem
Tunceri. I cannot recall such a concentration of talent
in one single competition, many of them true future
stars.
In the final, played on July 23, 1998, Yugoslavia defeated
Slovenia 92-73 with Igor Rakocevic as the star,
scoring 37 points. On the other side, Primoz Brezec
scored 21 points and pulled down 10 boards, but if we
look closely at the scoresheet, we can notice that Slovenia
really played with 11 players. There was one missing,
and not just any player: Matjaz Smodis, who was
born in Trbovlje, Slovenia on December 13, 1979. In the
accumulated stats of that tournament, he appears as
the leader of his team – 17.7 points and 8.7 rebounds –
but he played just three games. An injury kept him from
playing more, but three games were more than enough
for most scouts to notice his talent and potential. He
would shortly move to Italy to start his career as a true
pro, but before that he would play two more seasons
with his club of origin, Krka (the name of the river that
crosses the city) Novo Mesto, located some 70 kilometers
away from Ljubljana.
From Novo Mesto to Bologna
In the 1998-99 season, FC Barcelona played the
Korac Cup, and in the eighth-finals round, the eventual
champion of that competition traveled to Novo Mesto
knowing almost nothing about its opponent. Barca
won 75-66 on December 9, 1988, but it met a tough
rival with a young forward named Matjaz Smodis.
Three days before his 19th birthday, Smodis had 24
points and 14 rebounds in 38 minutes, shooting 62.5%
on two-pointers and 60% on threes. His talent was
obvious, and Barcelona put Smodis’s name on its list
of future signings. But Ettore Messina, coach of Kinder
Bologna, was quicker. In the summer of 2000, after winning
the Slovenian League with Krka, Messina took the
chance and signed Smodis, who was 20 years old.
Much later, Messina sent me his memories of the
young Smodis:
“Matjaz landed in Bologna at a very young age. He
still had a lot of work ahead of him to get to success, but
he also had a lot of predisposition. What first caught
our attention was his balance, despite his weight, and
his ability to play with physical contact, plus his basketball
IQ. Then, day after day, he learned from the fire he
had in his heart and which, later, would turn him into a
true leader, by word and example, in all the teams he
played.”
During his first season in Italy, Smodis played all
38 games, averaging 19 minutes, 8.6 points and 3.9
101 greats of european basketball
Matjaz Smodis
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