101 Greats of European Basketball

jan’s grandmother, Gospava, was a Petrovic when single
and the grandfather of Aca and Drazen was her brother
in a big family. Jole, the father of Aca and Drazen, was a
policeman in the former Yugoslavia who was assigned
to Sibenik, where he met his future wife, Biserka, while
Vaso Bodiroga, Dejan’s father, moved to Vojvodina. It
was a curious story of two cousins, Drazen and Dejan,
both superstars who played in Real Madrid. While in Real
Madrid, Bodiroga won his second straight gold medal,
at the 1997 EuroBasket in Barcelona. The following year,
in the Athens World Cup, Yugoslavia was champion and
he was chosen MVP at 25 years old. His national coach
in Atlanta, Barcelona and Athens was Zeljko Obradovic,
who was his coach at Real Madrid, as well. After two years
with Benetton Treviso, Obradovic joined Panathinaikos
Athens in the summer of 1999. The first thing he asked
was to sign Dejan Bodiroga. Before coming together
again at Panathinaikos, they also coincided at the Sydney
Olympics, where Yugoslavia fell in the quarterfinals
to Canada, led by a great Steve Nash.
A three-time European champion
Together again, Obradovic and Bodiroga started the
golden decade of Panathinaikos. The 2000 Final Four
was played in Thessaloniki and Panathinaikos made it
there without problems. In the semis, it defeated Efes
81-71 with 22 points by Bodiroga. In the title game, the
victim was Maccabi Tel Aviv by 73-67, with great games
by Zeljko Rebraca (20 points, 8 boards), Oded Kattash (17
points) and Bodiroga (9 points, 4 rebounds). In the spring
of 2001, the year of the “two EuroLeagues”, Maccabi
won the SuproLeague Final Four in Paris against Panathinaikos,
81-67, despite Bodiroga’s great game of 27 points
and 8 rebounds. That same summer, at the Istanbul EuroBasket,
he was champion again with Yugoslavia, this
time under the command of Svetislav Pesic, the fourth
important man in his career. In the first Final Four of the
modern EuroLeague, played in Bologna in 2002, the big
favorite was Ettore Messina’s Kinder Bologna, not only for
playing at home, but also because it had a great team with
players like Manu Ginobili, Marko Jaric, Alessandro Frosini,
Andersen, Rashard Griffith, Alessandro Abbio, Sani
Becirovic, Antoine Rigaudeau... However, after defeating
Maccabi in the semifinal by 83-75, Panathinaikos rolled
into the championship and surprised Kinder by 89-83
with a great Bodiroga, who scored 21 points and pulled 7
rebounds. Of course, he was named MVP.
Just as Obradovic had done when he joined Panathinaikos,
Svetislav Pesic did one thing just after arriving as
head coach at FC Barcelona: he asked for Dejan Bodiroga
to be in the team for his new project. In August of 2002, at
the World Cup in Indianapolis, Pesic coached Yugoslavia’s
star-studded team with Bodiroga, Jaric, Vlade Divac, Peja
Stojakovic, Igor Rakocevic, Milan Gurovic, Dejan Tomasevic,
Milos Vujanic... and won the gold medal. In Barcelona,
Pesic and Bodiroga had the challenge to turn a dream – to
make Barcelona, finally, a EuroLeague champ – into reality.
And they did. At the Final Four, played at Palau Sant Jordi
in Barcelona, the hosts first defeated CSKA Moscow by
76-71. In the title game, they downed Benetton Treviso
76-65 with 20 points by Bodiroga, who was chosen as
Final Four MVP for the second year in a row.
He was a versatile player with a lot of talent. But he
was also a sportsman who set an example and was
always polite to his rivals, referees, fans and the press.
As a player, Dejan Bodiroga owns a prominent place in
the memory of all basketball lovers.
Dejan Bodiroga
101 greats of european basketball
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