101 Greats of European Basketball

Vladimir Stankovic
basketball duos ever was born. The successor to Zeravica
for the national team bench was Mirko Novosel,
his assistant. For the 1973 EuroBasket in Barcelona,
Novosel started a revolution: aside from the veterans
like Cosic, Rato Tvrdic, Damir Solman, Vinko Jelovac
and Nikola Plecas, he called Dalipagic, Kicanovic, Zeljko
Jerkov, Dragan Ivkovic, Zoran Marovic and Slavnic, already
a veteran at 24 whom Zeravica had not counted
on. The outcome was spectacular: Yugoslavia’s first
gold medal in a EuroBasket and the start of an era that
would peak with the gold medal at the 1980 Olympics
in Moscow. The core of this brilliant team was formed
by Cosic (born in 1948), Slavnic (1949), Dalipagic (1951)
and Kicanovic (1953). As can be seen, they were not
from the same generation, but they connected on the
court. They played in four different positions and they
only needed a fifth man to form an unstoppable starting
five. Usually, the fifth man was center Zeljko Jerkov.
Owner of 12 medals
When distributing roles, Praja had always the toughest
one: scoring as much as possible. He started in Barcelona
in 1973 with an average of 8 points per game. In
Belgrade 1975 he had 12.1. Then came Montreal 1976
(18.2 ppg.), Belgium 1977 (19.8), Manila 1978 (22.4) and
Turin 1979 (14.0), Moscow 1980 (24.4), Prague 1981
(17.0), Columbia 1982 (18.1), Nantes 1983 (18.3), Los
Angeles 1984 (21.9) and Madrid 1986 (16.2). During
his 13 years with the national team, in the three great
competitions – EuroBasket, the World Cup, and the
Olympic Games – he won 12 medals: 5 golds, 3 silvers
and 4 bronzes. He played 246 games and scored 3,700
points, 400 more than second-in-line Kicanovic and
520 more than the third-best scorer, Cosic. Only Cosic,
with 14, has more medals than Dalipagic. His scoring
high for the national team was 46 points against Romania
in 1976, the second-best mark ever on the team,
surpassed only by Drazen Petrovic’s 47 points against
the Netherlands in 1986.
In his 10 years at Partizan, Dalipagic played a total
of 305 games, scored 8,278 points (27.1 per game)
and won two national leagues, one domestic cup and
one Korac Cup, in 1976. He also played in Italy for
Venezia, Udine and Verona, totaling 241 games with
7,993 points and 47.1% three-point shooting. He was
top scorer in Italy three times, with averages of 30.8,
36.5 and 36.3 points per game. On January 25, 1987,
playing for Venezia against Virtus Bologna (107-102) he
scored ... 70 points! In Venezia, in the second division,
his average for the 1981-82 season was ... 42.9 points!
In the 1982-83 season, he played for Real Madrid, but
only in the EuroLeague. In that team, he met fellow Bosnian
Mirza Delibasic.
At 39, Dalipagic accepted the call from his great
friend Moka Slavnic, coach of Crvena Zvezda, for the
1990-91 season and he didn’t disappoint. He scored
321 points and his three-point accuracy was 38%. The
esteemed players who achieved more than him that
season are: Arian Komazec of Zadar was the best scorer
(645), Zarko Paspalj of Partizan second (576), Toni
Kukoc third (438). The best shooters from downtown
were Zeljko Obradovic of Partizan (58.5%) and Velimir
Perasovic of Jugoplastika (50%).
Dalipagic could have been the first European in
the NBA. After the Montreal Olympics in 1976, where
Yugoslavia lost the final to the USA, the Boston Celtics
called Praja. He spent two weeks in their summer camp
and convinced everyone. But signing for an NBA team
would mean losing his “amateur” status, which would
deprive him of playing with Yugoslavia in FIBA competi-
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