101 Greats of European Basketball

Vladimir Stankovic
At the end of the season, national team head coach
Dusan Ivkovic called young Danilovic for EuroBasket
1989 in Zagreb – at 19 years old and after only one
season in the first division! The kid played alongside
Drazen Petrovic, Toni Kukoc, Divac, Paspalj and Dino
Radja. He finished the tournament with an average of
8.2 points and he even scored 4 points in the title game
against Greece, which Yugoslavia won 98-77. Not a bad
start: four titles in four different competitions!
The following season he only played 11 games due
to a serious injury, but his numbers had increased to
14.3 points per game. He missed the 1990 World Cup in
Argentina because of the injury. In the 1990-91 season,
he scored 13.9 points in the domestic league and won
a new gold medal with Yugoslavia at the 1991 EuroBasket
in Rome with 9 points in the title game against Italy.
Miracle in Istanbul
In the 1991-92 season, the Yugoslav League was
already being played without Croatian and Slovenian
teams, due to the war. Partizan won the cup and the
league as Danilovic averaged 21.8 points. In the EuroLeague,
his average was 19.4 points. Because of the war,
Partizan had to play its EuroLeague home games in Fuenlabrada,
Spain. The team made the Final Four in Istanbul,
where it performed two miracles. First, in the semis, and
for the third time that season, it defeated Philips Milan.
Then, in the title game, on April 16, it defeated Joventut
Badalona with the famous three-pointer by Djordjevic.
However, the MVP of the final was Danilovic, who scored
25 points – making 7 of 12 two-pointers, 2 of 4 threes
and 5 of 6 free throws – and pulled 5 rebounds in 32 minutes.
Djordjevic added 23 points on 6-for-7 three-point
shooting. They worked as a great duo.
The Istanbul heroes continued their careers in Italy.
Djordjevic signed for Milano while Danilovic chose Knorr
Bologna – or maybe Bologna chose him! – with young
Ettore Messina on the bench. In three years, they won
three Italian League titles. During the McDonald’s Open
of 1993 in Munich, the New York Times wrote an article
saying that Danilovic was the new Kukoc for the NBA.
“The next Toni Kukoc, perhaps, is a shooting forward
for an Italian team sponsored by a non-alcoholic beer.
On Thursday night, his uniform was as black as his hair,
bringing out the dusk around his eyes. Predrag Danilovic
is a hard worker, which explains his surly expression
and the joy of his efficient release. ‘He is an NBA
shooter – not scorer, but shooter,’ said Hubie Brown,
the former National Basketball Association coach.”
A dunk over ... Sabonis
Before trying his luck in the NBA, Danilovic won his third
gold medal at the 1995 EuroBasket. In an unforgettable
final, the best one I have ever seen, Yugoslavia defeated
Lithuania 96-90 with 41 points from Djordjevic (9 of 12
threes) and 23 by Danilovic, who was the undisputed protagonist
of the game by dunking over ... Arvydas Sabonis!
In that play, you can see the character of Danilovic: courage,
fight, desire, ambition, ability. Only somebody who is
sure of himself would even try, at hardly 2.01 meters, to
dunk against a wall standing 2.21 meters tall:
“I saw there was some free room and, out of intuition,
I went for the dunk. I knew that I had Sabonis in
front of me, but I thought that, at least, I would be able
to get a foul from that. The play turned out well,” he recalled,
as if it was just another of his many great plays.
Some character! It was his third European crown and
by the end of the season, he was chosen best player in
Europe by FIBA.
Hubie Brown was right: Danilovic was a shooter. In his
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