Damir Markota

Damir Markota
Player information
birthday	December 26, 1985
place of birth	Sarajevo, SFR Yugoslavia
size	209 cm
position	Power Forward / Center
NBA draft	2006 , 59th Pick San Antonio Spurs
Club information
society	CB Bilbao Berri
league	League ACB
Jersey number	22nd
Clubs as active
2001–2006 KK Cibona Zagreb 2001–2002 → KK Zabok 2002–2004 → KK Karlovac 2006–2007 Milwaukee Bucks → 2007 Tulsa 66ers 2007–2008 Spartak St. Petersburg 2008 Žalgiris Kaunas 2008 KK Cibona Zagreb 2008–2009 ViveMenorca 2009–2010 iurbentia / Bizkaia Bilbao 2010–2011 KK Union Olimpija 2012 KK Zagreb 2012–2013 Beşiktaş Milangaz 2013 Brose Baskets Since 2013 CB Bilbao Berri 000 00000 00000 00000 00000 00
National team
Since 02006	Croatia

Damir Markota (born December 26, 1985 as Damir Omerhodžić in Sarajevo , SR Bosnia and Herzegovina ) is a Croatian basketball player who also has Swedish citizenship. Markota first played for the Croatian record champions KK Cibona, before he was " drafted " in the NBA in 2006 , where he briefly played for the Milwaukee Bucks. After a year he returned to Europe and played for various European clubs, including at short notice at the beginning of the basketball Bundesliga 2013/14 for the German champions Brose Baskets. He then returned to the club from Bilbao in the ACB league, for which he had already been active in the 2009/10 season. In addition to a championship with KK Cibona, Markota won the Lithuanian championship and the Baltic Basketball League with Žalgiris Kaunas in 2008 . Markota also won the Slovenian cup competition with Union Olimpija in 2011 .

Career

Markota, who was born in Sarajevo, had fled to Sweden with his family before the Yugoslav wars, where he grew up and played basketball with the future Polish national player Maciej Lampe . At the age of 14 he returned to the former Yugoslav territory and was accepted into the junior program of the record champions KK Cibona in the Croatian capital Zagreb . At the age of 16, Markota was first loaned out to other teams in order to gain match practice in the senior division. From the 2004/05 season Markota was then a permanent part of the squad of the Croatian record champions, who were able to take back the championship title from KK Zadar in 2006 . After Markota had already made short appearances for KK Cibona in previous years in the highest European club competition ULEB Euroleague , he was a top performer in the ULEB Euroleague 2005/06 , when Cibona narrowly failed to make it into the quarter-final play-offs in a four-man comparison . Then the top scorer of the U20 European Championship 2005 in the NBA Draft 2006 was selected by the San Antonio Spurs in 59th and penultimate place. They traded him to the Milwaukee Bucks, who took Markota into their roster at the age of 21. Here, however, he came only to short deployments and was posted to the Tulsa 66ers in the NBA Development League in February and March 2007 . The Bucks brought Markota back into their squad, but eventually lost interest in the junior player and released him from his contract before the start of the following season.

Markota returned to Europe and got in the 2007/08 season a contract with BK Spartak in the Russian Saint Petersburg . Here he did not stay until the end of the season, but instead switched to the Lithuanian champion Žalgiris from Kaunas , who was able to defend his national double from championship and cup and won the championship in the Baltic Basketball League from arch-rivals Lietuvos rytas Vilnius . As a result, Markota was that in the 2007 European Championships for the first time in a final squad of the Croatian Men's National Team had stood, even the qualifying tournament for the 2008 Olympic Games represented, remained unbeaten in Croatia and against the German selection for the games in Beijing qualified . However, after a meniscus injury at this tournament, Markota missed participation in the actual Olympic basketball tournament . At the beginning of the following season 2008/09 Markota was briefly back in the squad of KK Cibona before moving to Spain in the ACB league for ViveMenorca. After just three months, he moved to league competitor iurbentia from Bilbao in January 2009 . While Menorca missed relegation, Bilbao was able to qualify in eighth place for the second time in a row for the play-offs for the Spanish championship, in which they were eliminated again in the first round against regional rivals and defending champions TAU Cerámica . In the Eurocup 2008/09 they moved into the semi-finals, which were lost to the Russian runner-up BK Chimki . In the 2009/10 season it was enough under the new name Bizkaia Bilbao Basket in the national championship but only to ninth place, which meant missing the play-offs. In the Eurocup 2009/10 they reached the Final Four tournament, which was held in the hall of the regional competitor Saski Baskonia in Vitoria-Gasteiz . Again they lost the semi-finals, this time despite the alleged home advantage somewhat surprisingly against the German representative ALBA Berlin , so that it was only enough for third place in the small final.

In the 2010/11 season, Markota was then under contract with the Slovenian record champions KK Union Olimpija from the capital Ljubljana , who managed to defend his title in the Slovenian cup competition, but in just under five games in trying to get the national championship title back from KK Krka Final series failed. In the ULEB Euroleague 2010/11 , Olimpija reached the intermediate round of the 16 best teams with a positive record, but was eliminated there after only one further victory in six games. In the following season, the financially troubled club could not pay the salaries on time and Markota left the team at the end of the year. From January 2012 Markota played for Cibona's local rivals KK Zagreb. The defending champion reached the play-offs in third place, but in the end Cibona was able to regain the title. In the 2012/13 season Markota played for the Turkish champions Beşiktaş Milangaz from Istanbul . In the ULEB Euroleague 2012/13 they reached the intermediate round of the 16 best teams, but there were only two wins in 14 games. In the Turkish championship, too, the defending champion was eliminated in the first play-off round after finishing sixth after the main round. At the 2013 European Championship finals , Croatia with Markota reached the semi -finals for the first time in 18 years, but missed the first medal since 1995 after defeats against Lithuania and Spain. After the continued failure of Novica Veličković signed at the beginning of the basketball Bundesliga 2013/14 the German champion Brose Baskets from Bamberg Markota as a replacement. After the return of Veličković, Markota left the club after just over two months and nine national championship games and returned to Spain to Bilbao Berri. Similar to Bamberg, who had played in the Euroleague at the beginning of the season, they failed in the Eurocup 2013/14 this time in the round of the best 32 teams. In the Spanish championship, for the first time since ninth place in 2010, it was not enough to a play-off placement.

Web links

• ACB.COM: Damir Markota - player profile on the websites of the Liga ACB ( Spanish )
• Markota, DAMIR - Player profile on the sides of the ULEB ( English )
• Damir Markota - player profile on basketball-reference.com
• Damir MARKOTA (CRO) - Overview of participation in FIBA tournaments

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Bamberg gets Croatian Markota. Spox.com , September 27, 2013, accessed April 26, 2014 . 
2. ↑ Frankie Sachs: Profiles: Caja Laboral's Maciej Lampe shares first steps with another star. ULEB , April 16, 2013, accessed April 26, 2014 . 
3. ↑ CRO - Rudez called by Croatia after meniscus injury knocks out Markota. FIBA , August 3, 2008, accessed April 26, 2014 . 
4. ↑ Damir Markota - Turkish Basketball League Player: 2012-2013 Season. TBLStat.net, accessed May 26, 2014 (English). 
5. ↑ Beko BBL - Player Statistics - Damir Markota - Brose Baskets. Basketball Bundesliga , accessed on April 26, 2014 (player profile on statistics pages). 
6. ↑ BILBAO BASKET brings back Markota. (No longer available online.) ULEB , November 25, 2013, archived from the original on December 3, 2013 ; accessed on April 26, 2014 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.