101 Greats of European Basketball

World Cup in Spain. His contribution was 10.4 points
per game. The following year he also won trophies.
First, in March, Cibona defeated Scavolini Pesaro 89-74
in Novi Sad to claim the Saporta Cup.
Cosic, by then the Yugoslav national team coach,
didn’t call Cutura for the 1987 EuroBasket in Athens,
which saw the debut of Toni Kukoc, Vlade Divac, Dino
Radja and Sasha Djordjevic. In 1988 Cibona won its last
title in Yugoslavia. In the Yugoslav Cup final in Rijeka,
the Zagreb team defeated Boza Maljkovic’s Jugoplastika
82-80. Looking back on the end of the game, my
friend Novosel shared a few thoughts:
“The clock showed 20 seconds left and we had possession.
I called for a timeout and I showed a play for
Cutura. They expected Drazen to take the shot, which
was logical, but I trusted Zoran. After good ball circulation,
Zoran was left open and with a perfect shot, he
gave us the win.”
Cutura was the man of the game with 21 points and
the game-winning shot. Drazen scored 15 points. On
the other side, Dusko Ivanovic netted 15 and Kukoc 14.
For the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, coach Dusan
Ivkovic called Cutura back to the team. Yugoslavia
won the silver medal, behind only the USSR, with 8.2
points and 3.5 rebounds coming from Cutura. In 1989,
he enjoyed EuroBasket at home, in front of his fans.
Yugoslavia was back on top with uncontested superiority.
With Drazen Petrovic as its absolute leader, the
rest of the team was Divac, Kukoc, Radja, Zarko Paspalj,
Jure Zdovc, Predrag Danilovic, Zoran Radovic, Mario Primorac,
Stojan Vrankovic and Zradko Radulovic. Cutura
contributed 5 points per game.
World champion
The following summer, almost the same team besides
the injured Radja went on to win the World Cup in
Buenos Aires with authority. Cutura was a part of that
team too, the last of Yugoslavia as a unified country.
In the 1990-91 season, Cutura played his last Yugoslav
League because, after the breakup of the country,
Slovenians and Croatians did not play the Yugoslav
championship anymore. His 10 years in the first division
ended with 269 games, 3,425 points and an average of
14.7 points. His best scoring seasons were 18.5 points
in 1983-84 and 19.1 in the 1989-90 season.
At age 30, he still had a lot to say on the court, but he
didn’t make the Croatian national team for the Barcelona
Olympics in 1992. In 1991-92 he played for Cibona in the
first EuroLeague with more than one team per country.
Because of the war in Croatia, Cibona played its home
games in Spain. With Radulovic, Danko Cvjeticanin, Veljko
Mrsic, Knego, Franjo Arapovic and Cutura, it was a
solid team. Cutura did not play the 1993 EuroBasket in
Germany either. That year, after 12 seasons with Cibona,
Cutura decided to move to Split. In 1994 he won his last
trophy, the Croatian Cup, before retiring in 1995.
After his impressive run in Cibona, Split and the
national team, Cutura had won 17 titles, a silver medal
and two bronzes. He is one of the few greats from
the former Yugoslavia who never played abroad. He
explained several times that he had the chance to do
so, but that his kids were in school and he didn’t want to
leave without his family.
After his career, Cutura became a colleague of mine.
He is a well-known journalist, well respected because of
his basketball knowledge and clear and direct style. He is a
perfect analyst, with the right words about any situation.
Zoran Cutura
101 greats of european basketball
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