101 Greats of European Basketball

Vladimir Stankovic
own countries. But the disintegration of a former country
could not destroy the bond among those players, forged
on the court while defending the same jersey.
One year later, with almost the same team at the
1986 World Cup in Spain, the USSR lost the title game
87-85 to the United States, led by Kenny Smith and
David Robinson, with 23 points each. In 30 minutes,
Volkov scored 8 points, a little below his average in the
tourney (11.2). That same year, Volkov was picked in the
NBA draft’s sixth round by the Atlanta Hawks. A year
later, at the 1987 EuroBasket in Athens, Volkov and the
USSR lost the title to Greece 103-101 in overtime, after
having tied 89-89 at the end of regulation time.
Olympic champion
Before going to the NBA, Volkov and his teammates
would reach the peak of their careers at the 1988 Olympics
in Seoul. After losing the first game of the group
stage to Yugoslavia, the USSR team won all its remaining
games. In the semifinals, they defeated the United
States 82-76, and in the gold-medal game, the victim
was Yugoslavia by the score of 76-63. In 26 minutes,
Volkov scored 7 points and pulled down 3 boards.
From 1981 to 1986, Volkov played with Budivelnyk
Kiev and from 1986 to 1988 he was part of the CSKA
Moscow team. For the 1988-89 season, he was back
to Budivelnyk. Right before his trip to America, Volkov
played the 1989 EuroBasket in Zagreb and completed
his medal collection. In addition to the previous gold
and silver medals, he took a bronze after the USSR’s
surprising loss to Greece in the semis, 81-80. Volkov’s
scoring average was 17.2 points in the tournament.
It was also the last tournament for the USSR with the
Lithuanian players like Sabonis, Marciulionis and Valdemaras
Chomicius.
Volkov’s NBA debut for Atlanta took place on November
3, 1989, in a game won by Indiana, 126-103. It
was just a symbolic debut because Volkov played only
1 minute and couldn’t contribute anything. Officially,
however, his NBA adventure started that day. It was
a game full of stars. On Indiana’s side, we could find
Reggie Miller (36 points), Schrempf and Vern Fleming,
while Atlanta had Dominique Wilkins, Moses Malone
and Doc Rivers. In three years in the NBA, Volkov played
149 games with an average of 14.1 minutes, 6.8 points
and 2.6 rebounds. I think that, by today’s standards, he
would probably double those figures.
Already as an NBA player, Volkov attended the 1990
World Cup in Buenos Aires and he won his second silver
medal as the USSR was defeated by Yugoslavia in the
final 92-75. With 15 points, Volkov was his team’s best
scorer, along with Gundars Vetra. On the other side,
there was the Yugoslav “Dream Team” with Drazen
Petrovic, Vlade Divac, Toni Kukoc, Zarko Paspalj, Zoran
Savic, Velimir Perasovic, Jure Zdovc, Zeljko Obradovic
and Arijan Komazec.
Volkov’s last great international competition was
the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. He played for the
CIS, a team formed by players from the former Soviet
republics except for the Baltic countries. One of those
Baltic countries, Lithuania, won the bronze medal. The
CIS lost out on a medal by losing to Croatia in the semifinals
75-74 in a game that Volkov is probably not fond
of since he missed two free throws down the stretch.
Back to Europe
After three years in the NBA, but with several serious
injuries along the way, Volkov returned to Europe in
1992. His first stop was Italy with Reggio Calabria. In 27
Italian League games, he averaged 19.3 points. He then
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