10 things you do not know about Serbia

MANILA (Philippines) - We are just hours away from the big Final of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 in the Mall of Asia Arena in Manila. But do you know everything there is to know about the Finalists?

Here are ten things you may not know about the players and coaches from Serbia.

#10 Bogdanovic is a gamer

Other than being a game changer on the court, Bogdan Bogdanovic spent a lot of time playing video games. Back when he started his Twitter account, he was all in on World of Warcraft, which is why he choose his nickname Leader of Horde.

 
"I still play it sometimes, but only in that short free period after the club season, before the national team training camp begins. I just don't have the time to play it more. If you pick it up, just be careful. Games can become addictive," he told us back in 2017.

#9 Jovic wasn't born in Serbia

Nikola Jovic is the next big thing for the Land of Basketball, but he got there only when he was already in school. He was born in Leicester, Great Britain, where his father Ilija played basketball professionally, and the family moved to Serbia when Nikola was nine years old.

#8 Double-double king

No matter what happens in the Final, Nikola Milutinov will leave the Philippines ranked number one in at least one category. He picked up four double-doubles in seven games so far, and since Carlik Jones, Karl-Anthony Towns and Jonas Valanciunas are behind him with three, there is nobody who can catch Milutinov up there.

Up there, both as in the leaderboard, and as in above the rims.

#7 Avramovic the game winner

The introduction of the new format of the FIBA Basketball World Cup Qualifiers gave a lot of new faces a chance to earn their spot in the national team. Aleksa Avramovic is now a well-known name all over the world, but five years ago he first made the continent-wide headlines with his game winning triple on the road in Austria.

He has come a long way from "that kid from Varese" to "arguably best defender at the World Cup."

#6 Vanja Marinkovic

Serbia plays with another speed to their gearbox in Manila, and no wonder Vanja Marinkovic enjoys it so much. Marinkovic is a big MotoGP fan, and a big Fabio Quartararo fan especially, having met the 2021 World Champ in person. Whatever you do, just don't mention Marc Marquez to Vanja, not a fan, at all...

#5 Dobric the student

The path to greatness has all sorts of shortcuts and roundabouts. Ognjen Dobric is now a starter on a World Cup finalist squad, but he didn't have the usual talent - prospect - wunderkind - teenage star route. Instead, he had to work his way up through different ranks of the Serbian program.

As a 21-year-old, he was a part of the Serbian student team, which played the Summer Universiade in Gwangju, South Korea. Patience is a virtue, a step forward each year and he'll soon celebrate his 29th birthday as a World Cup medalist and a man who signed a contract with the Italian powerhouse Virtus Bologna.

#4 Grandpa's influence

Being from Belgrade, or from any other part of Serbia, the question you'll hear the most is: Partizan or Red Star? For some, it's a matter of choice. For some, it's a matter of first hand experience. And then, there's Dejan Davidovac.

He probably bleeds red-and-white, he wanted nothing other than playing for his beloved Crvena Zvezda, and it was always embedded in him, since his grandfather - a former footballer - thought him as a kid that he should be a Zvezda fan. You can only imagine grandpa's excitement when Dejan signed his first contract with Red Star...

Davidovac played a fabulous year in 2021-22, earning a lucrative deal in CSKA Moscow. After just a single season there, he's going back home, penning a new deal with, of course, Red Star Belgrade.

#3 Pool incident

Nikola Milutinov considers himself at least half-Greek, after spending five years there with Olympiacos, and going back there this summer after three years in CSKA Moscow. He probably would've found his way to Olympiacos water polo club had the universe aligned things differently.

That's because Milutinov was much more into swimming when he was a kid, and with Serbia's water polo tradition, it would've been easy to see him grow up into a water polo beast. But, as a kid he slipped on the edge of the pool once and broke his jaw.

It was then that he decided he's not going back to the pool any time soon, and since the FR Yugoslavia team was winning FIBA EuroBasket 2001 and FIBA Basketball World Cup 2002 at the time, he followed it on TV and wanted to give it a shot. Good shot, since he's one of the best centers worldwide over the last decade.

#2 The notebook

Stefan Jovic had to carry a notebook in his pocket for a season. Back in 2013, Aleksandar Djordjevic took over as the coach of the Serbian national team, and went to check a random Radnicki Kragujevac game to see some of the national team prospects there.

However, he added a new name to the list, as a young point guard Stefan Jovic intrigued him. Djordjevic told Jovic to take extra shots from the corners, "because you will spend a lot of time in corners on the court," to write down his percentages in a notebook and to keep track of his progress.

When Jovic got called up to the national team, Djordjevic asked him about the notebook, and Jovic came prepared, taking it out of his pocket, to the delight of the coach. Guess what? This notebook movie had a happy end instantly, as Jovic won the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2014 silver medal in his first summer with the national team.

#1 Pesic, the German

There is plenty to choose from when you're going through Svetislav Pesic's 41-year-long coaching career, and the accolades are hard to list, with a number of club and national team trophies.

But he is also considered the father of modern German basketball, leading the country to an upset run at the FIBA EuroBasket 1993, where Germany won their only gold medal in major competitions to date.

They had never finished higher than fifth prior to 1993, and they failed to qualify for the FIBA EuroBasket 1989 and 1991. He took his knowledge to club basketball, too, coaching ALBA Berlin from 1993 to 2000 and claiming four Bundesliga championships in a row.

He still lives in Germany, his German is perfect, so it will be entertaining to witness the two Pesic nations facing each other in the Final.

FIBA