Dragan Kićanović

Dragan Kićanović
Player information
birthday	August 17, 1953 (67 years and 14 days)
place of birth	Čačak, SFR Yugoslavia
size	191 cm
position	Shooting Guard
Clubs as active
1970–1971 Železničar Čačak 1971–1972 KK Borac Čačak 1972–1981 KK Partizan Belgrade 1981–1983 Scavolini Pesaro 1983–1984 Paris Basket Racing
National team
1973-1984	Yugoslavia	216

Dragan Kićanović medal table
Basketball (men)
SFR Yugoslavia
Olympic games
silver	1976 Montreal
gold	1980 Moscow
World championships
silver	1974 Puerto Rico
gold	1978 Philippines
bronze	1982 Colombia
European Championship
gold	1973 Spain
gold	1975 Yugoslavia
gold	1977 Belgium
bronze	1979 Italy
silver	1981 ČSSR

Dragan Kićanović ( Serbian - Cyrillic Драган Кићановић ; born August 17, 1953 in Čačak , SR Serbia ) is a former Yugoslav basketball player . With the Yugoslav national basketball team , Kićanović was Olympic champion in 1980 and world champion in 1978, as well as three times European champion . In addition, he won the Korać Cup twice and the Saporta Cup once with his respective clubs . After his career, Kićanović was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame .

Career

In 1972, at the age of 19, Kićanović moved from his hometown from KK Borac to Partizan in Belgrade , where he would subsequently form a formidable duo with Dražen Dalipagić . With Partizan Kićanović won three Yugoslav championships. After five previous runner-up championships for the club, the first title ever came in 1976. In 1978 they first won the European Cup Korać Cup by beating the Yugoslav double winner KK Bosna Sarajevo in the final and in 1979 the triple of championship, cup and Korać Cup. 1981 was followed by another championship, in which Dalipagic already played in the Italian Serie A1 , in which Kićanović subsequently moved, while Dalipagić initially returned to Partizan for one season. With Scavolini from the Italian Pesaro Kićanović won after an Italian runner-up in 1982 the Saporta Cup 1983. In the 1983/84 season he played in France in the second division for Racing Club in Paris . He then ended his playing career.

From 1984 onwards, Kićanović worked as Partizan's sports director for ten years . After the championship title in 1987, Euroleague Final Four participation in 1988 and Korać Cup victory in 1989, Partizan also had to accept the departure of its most talented players such as Vlade Divac or Žarko Paspalj to the NBA or to Greece . Kićanović made 1991 Željko Obradović, also from Čačak, the new coach, who then ended his playing career at the age of 31. With a team of young players with an average age of 21.7 years, the new coach appointed by Kićanović not only won the Yugoslav double in his first year in 1992 , which was of less value in view of the onset of civil war , but also the highest European title in the Euroleague of national champions . From 1996 to 2005 Kićanović was President of the NOK of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro .

National team

After Yugoslavia had become world champion for the first time at the 1970 World Cup in their own country despite a defeat against the Soviet national basketball team , they won a European basketball championship for the first time after four previous defeats at the European Championship 1973 with the participation of Kićanović. The title success against the host Spanish national basketball team , which previously defeated the Soviet Union, which had triumphed in eight consecutive European championships, in the semifinals, was followed by two further European championships, in which one could even defeat the Soviet Union in the final. Also at the 1974 World Cup you could defeat the Soviet Union in the final round, but not defend the title first won in 1970, because after a defeat against the national basketball team of the United States , you had a poorer basket ratio compared to the Soviet Union in a three-way comparison . Kićanović himself was voted Most Valuable Player of the 1974 World Cup.

When the Olympic tournament in 1976 , where you could defeat the Soviet Union again, one was but in the Americas in Canadian Montreal also clearly inferior to the United States, both in the preliminary round as the final. 1978 also succeeded the World Cup triumph for Kićanović, when you could again defeat the Soviet Union in the final with one point after extra time. Kićanović club mate Dalipagić was MVP and elected to the All-Tournament Team with Kićanović and Krešimir Ćosić , selecting the best players in their respective positions. Contrary to some prejudice against the defensive orientation of the Yugoslav basketball school , the Yugoslavs under coach Aleksandar Nikolić excelled in particular on the offensive and scored more than 100 points in regular time in five of six final round games with an average of 104 points per game.

In the year of Partizan's greatest success, they lost again to the Soviet Union in the final round at the 1979 European Championship, and because of a narrow defeat in the preliminary round to the Israeli national basketball team , they missed the final game due to the lost direct comparison and had to be satisfied with the bronze medal. At the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow you could not only triumph over the host Soviet Union, but also over the Italian national basketball team in the final, in which Kićanović scored the most points within the Yugoslav selection with 22. At the subsequent EM in 1981 they were defeated both in the final round and in the final game against the Soviet Union. At the 1982 World Cup in Colombia , after losing the final round to the Soviet Union and the USA, they won the bronze medal in a game for third place in a high-scoring game with 119-117 against Spain. Kićanović scored 190 points, the most points of all players in this tournament and the highest point average of all final round participants. Kićanović last final round participation with the Yugoslav national team at the EM 1983 in France, where he then played for a year, ended for the first time without a medal on a disappointing seventh place for the successful team.

Honors

From the Italian sports magazines Superbasket and La Gazzetta dello Sport Kićanović was unanimously voted European basketball player of the year in 1981 and 1982. In 2010 FIBA accepted him into their Hall of Fame .

At the beginning of 2008, Dragan Kićanović was one of a group of 105 basketball players who were nominated by the Euroleague basketball and / or basketball enthusiasts to determine fifty important figures in basketball in Europe , active in the period 1958 to 2008 and subsequently in Madrid in May 2008 ( Spain ). All the nominated players played a particularly prominent role in the European Cup competitions of FIBA Europe and the Euroleague basketball and were each among the particularly prominent stars of their national league teams.

Web links

• Dragan Kićanović (2010 Class) - Entry in the FIBA Hall of Fame (English)
• Dragan Kicanovic, the Cacak genius - Appreciation to Vladimir Stanković on the ULEB Euroleague website , October 29, 2011 (English)
• Players - Dragan Kicanovic (YUG). archive.fiba.com - Overview of participation as a selection player in FIBA ​​tournaments (English)
• Legabasket: Dragan Kicanovic - Profile on the statistics pages of Lega Basket Serie A (Italian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Vladimir Stanković: 1992: Partizan's miracle year. ULEB , April 10, 2011, accessed August 12, 2011 . 
2. ↑ Fiba world championships history - 2007 edition. (PDF; 186 kB) FIBA , p. 7 , accessed on August 12, 2011 (English). 
3. ↑ 1982 FIBA ​​World Championship for Men: Leaders. FIBA , accessed on August 12, 2011 (English, statistics from the 1982 World Cup in the FIBA ​​archive). 
4. ↑ PR N ° 23 - FIBA ​​announces 2010 Hall of Fame Class. (No longer available online.) FIBA , August 20, 2010, archived from the original on October 19, 2010 ; accessed on August 12, 2011 (English, press release). 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.  
5. ^ NN: The All-Time Player Nominees. ( Memento of January 2, 2015 on the Internet Archive ) Archived from EuroLeague website; Barcelona, ​​January 2, 2015. Accessed February 2, 2019.