101 Greats of European Basketball

Vladimir Stankovic
In the summer of 1995, Zidek was selected in the
NBA Draft by the Charlotte Hornets with the 22nd pick
of the first round. His first season didn’t go bad at all: he
played 71 games averaging 4 points and 2.6 rebounds,
but a lot of changes on the team affected his role. During
the 1996-97 season, after 36 games with Charlotte, he
was traded to the Denver Nuggets and played a total
of 52 games between them, with similar numbers. In
1997-98, he played sparingly with both Denver and Seattle,
after which he decided to return to Europe.
“I didn’t have many opportunities, because the
rosters of the European teams were closed,” Zidek
recalled. “Then Sarunas Marciulionis called me, saying
that Zalgiris needed a center, but also was looking for a
point guard. I recommended Tyus Edney, my teammate
at UCLA. Fortunately, they accepted. And that’s how
Tyus and I got together again. I wasn’t in top shape after
not playing much the previous two years, but Zalgiris
had a lot of patience.”
The team didn’t begin the EuroLeague well, losing
99-84 at Fenerbahce on the way to a 1-2 record. But after
that, Zalgiris won 11 of its next 12 games to become
a contender. It later swept two other Turkish teams,
Ulker and Efes, to reach the Final Four.
Once in Munich, as something of an underdog,
Zalgiris surprised its opponents early. In the semifinal,
after leading 48-33 at halftime, Zalgiris downed Olympiacos
87-71 with Anthony Bowie scoring 19 points,
while Zidek had 9 points and 5 rebounds in 19 minutes.
In the final, Zalgiris faced defending champion Kinder
Bologna, and it was the same story. Up 45-30 after the
first 20 minutes, Zalgiris fought off a Kinder comeback
attempt to win 82-74. Bowie again paced the winners
with 17 points, while Zidek added 12 points and 6 rebounds
in 23 minutes. Making it look easier than most
Final Four champions, Zalgiris lifted the first – and still
only – EuroLeague title by a Lithuanian club.
“The final was straight from out of a movie, and ended
with the EuroLeague title,” Zidek says. “The funny
thing was the way we prepared for the Final Four. Coach
Jonas Kazlauskas gave us a lot of time to rest, and he
let us have our wives or girlfriends with us. Unforgettable.
We had a great atmosphere on the team, without
any jealousy between the players.”
It was a team that featured very good Lithuanians –
Saulius Stombergas, Eurelijus and Mindaugas Zukauskas,
Tomas Masiulis, Darius Maskoliunas and Kestutis
Sestokas – and great foreigners in Edney, Bowie and
Zidek. The team’s top scorer was Bowie with 14 points
per game, while Masiulis was the best rebounder at 5.9
on average. Zidek finished with 8.6 points and 4.7 rebounds
in 18.1 minutes per game. His top scoring performance
was 17 points against Crvena Zvezda, while
he pulled down 10 rebounds against both Tau Ceramica
and Varese. Not only did Zidek win the title his father
had missed in the 1966 final with Slavia Prague, but he
became the first European to win both the EuroLeague
and NCAA titles.
After winning the EuroLeague title, much of the Zalgiris
team left. Zidek began the next season in Kaunas
but finished it with Ulker. He then played for Real Madrid
in the inaugural EuroLeague game of the new century,
averaging 6.3 points and 2.3 rebounds over 15 games
that season. His next stops were ALBA Berlin and
Prokom Trefl Sopot, before he finished his career with
Czech club Nymburk between 2003 and 2005. Zidek
stayed to help the young players and the club become
something more serious, and he highlights the role of
club president Miroslav Jansta in making that happen
as the most influential person in Czech basketball in
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