101 Greats of European Basketball

The last
romantic
To start this entry, I want to say that the
title of this post is not original. It is mine,
however. I wrote it first for the website of
the Spanish League. And I cannot imagine
anything better to define, in just a few
words, the basketball genius of Mirza
Delibasic, who was born on January 9, 1954, in Tuzla
and died on December 8, 2001, in Sarajevo.
From the first time I saw him at the U16 European
Championship in 1971 in Gorizia, Italy, and then at the
U18 European Championship in1972 in Zadar, he was
my favorite player, he and his great friend and teammate,
Dragan Kicanovic. Together, they walked the
same path from cadet European champs in 1971 to
world champions in 1978 to Olympic gold medalists in
1980, as well as EuroBasket winners in 1975 and 1977.
Before becoming a great basketball player, Delibasic
was a great tennis talent. He began a promising tennis
career in his hometown of Tuzla and was even a Bosnia-Herzegovina
champion in youth categories. However,
when his tennis coach decided to take his own son
to a championship instead of Mirza, Delibasic started
thinking about changing sports. That was basketball’s
good fortune.
Talent and elegance
Delibasic had supernatural talent and elegance.
Every move he made on the court seemed so easy, so
natural, that he made it look like there was nothing easier
on Earth than scoring baskets, dribbling or making
good passes. In the former Yugoslavia, with a well-organized
network of scouts, it was practically impossible
for a talent to go unnoticed. Mirko Novosel, who was
the national coach of youth categories, called him for
the U16 European Championship in 1971 in Gorizia,
where Yugoslavia won the gold medal by defeating host
Italy 74-60 in the final. Mirza finished the tourney as
the best scorer, with 99 points – 9 more than Kicanovic.
One year later, at the U18 European Championship in
Zadar, Delibasic led Yugoslavia to another gold medal
with 144 points, again ahead of Kicanovic (90). That
same summer, Mirza signed for Bosna Sarajevo, and
perhaps not even head coach Bogdan Tanjevic, a great
architect of the game, knew yet that he had found the
key piece of his opus.
When Novosel was in charge of the national team,
he gave Kicanovic his first major opportunity. Delibasic
traveled to the World Cup 1974 in Puerto Rico as the 13th
player, to observe and learn. He would have to wait until
EuroBasket 1975 in Belgrade and the Mediterranean
Games to become a fixture on the first team. From the
EuroBasket in Belgrade to the World Cup 1982 in Spain,
Delibasic won eight medals at major competitions:
two EuroBasket golds (1975 and 1977), a silver (1981)
and a bronze (1982). He was world champion in 1978,
an Olympic champion in 1980 and an Olympic finalist
in 1976. With the Yugoslavia national team, Delibasic
played 176 games, with 147 wins and just 29 defeats.
He scored 1,759 points for an average of 10 points per
game. He ranks as the 10th best scorer in the history of
the former Yugoslavia’s national team. I had the privilege
to witness his best scoring night. It took place at the Balkans
Championship in Skopje in 1977, when he scored
36 points against Bulgaria during a 96-90 victory.
101 greats of european basketball
Mirza Delibasic
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