Emir Preldžić

Emir Preldžić
Player information
birthday	September 6, 1987
place of birth	Zenica, SFR Yugoslavia
size	206 cm
position	Point forward
NBA draft	2009 , 57. Pick Phoenix Suns
Club information
society	Darüşşafaka SK Doğuş
league	Türkiye Basketbol Ligi
Jersey number	14th
Clubs as active
2003–2004 Celik Zenica 2004–2005 KK Triglav Kranj 2005–2007 KD Geoplin Slovan 2007–2015 Fenerbahçe Ülker Since 2015 Darüşşafaka Doğuş 0
National team
000002008 since 02011	Slovenia Turkey

Emir Preldžić (born September 6, 1987 in Zenica , SR Bosnia and Herzegovina ) is a Bosnian - Turkish basketball player who also has Slovene citizenship . Preldžić celebrated early successes with the Slovenian junior team and also played in the Olympic qualification first for the Slovenian men's team, but after changing clubs in 2007, the Bosniak took on Turkish citizenship and finally became a national player in his adopted country, for which he played in European Championship finals and the 2014 World Cup finalsstarted. With his club team Fenerbahçe Ülker, Preldžić was four times Turkish champion before moving to local rivals Darüşşafaka Doğuş in Istanbul for the 2015/16 season.

Career

After Preldžić made his men's debut at his home club Celik in the 2003/04 season, he moved to Slovenia, where he initially spent a year in Kranj at KK Triglav and finally two years until 2007 at KD Slovan in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana played. Here Preldžić got the Slovenian citizenship and triumphed in the Slovenian junior selection at the U20 European Championship finals in 2006, when he narrowly missed a double-double with a good 20 points and 9.4 rebounds per game . The Slovenes, led by the younger age groups Jaka Klobučar , Gašper Vidmar and Preldžić, lost in the semi-finals in Turkey just after extra time against the eventual title winners from Serbia and Montenegro , but were able to secure the bronze medal in third place and Preldžić and became elected into the selection of the five best tournament players behind the tournament MVP Ersan İlyasova , who is already active in the NBA . A year later, the Slovenian junior selection as the host and record winner at the time, who had already won the finals twice in five previous events, was the top favorite, but after the opening success over the defending champions Serbia, led by tournament MVP Miloš Teodosić , they suffered the only one in the second round Tournament defeat against the Russian junior selection, which is why they failed on the basis of the poorer direct comparison at the semi-finals and missed another medal win in fifth place. Subsequently, Preldžić and his club mate Vidmar, with whom he had reached two runner-up championships at Geoplin Slovan, behind local rivals and record champions KK Union Olimpija , were hired by Turkish champion Fenerbahçe Ülker, who, as the so-called A license holder, is a permanent participant in the highest-ranking European club competition ULEB Euroleague was.

In the ULEB Euroleague 2007/08 Fenerbahçe under coach Bogdan Tanjević was able to reach the quarter-final play-offs of this competition for the first time , which they lost to the Italian champions Montepaschi Siena without a win . The national championship title was defended in the national play-offs after only two defeats in twelve games. After Vidmar and Klobučar had already played in the European Championship finals in 2007 directly after the Junior European Championship in the men's national team, Preldžić now moved into the national team of coach Aleš Pipan in summer 2008 . But the pre-Olympic qualifying tournament in Athens Slovenians knocked out in the quarterfinals against Puerto Rico and missed again the first-time participation in the Olympic tournament . In a well-staffed intermediate round group of the ULEB Euroleague 2008/09 Fenerbahçe reached only one win in six games and this time eliminated before reaching the play-offs. In the final series of the national championship, the team missed the third title win in a row as runner-up against local rivals and record champions Efes Pilsen Istanbul . Although Preldžić had remained pale next to the Bosnian Nihad Đedović at the Nike Hoop Summit 2007 two years earlier , the above-average agile and ball-dexterous player for his size was one of the selected players in the 2009 Entry Draft of the highest-endowed professional league NBA despite his at least two at the time Years current contract in Istanbul. In 57th position he was selected by the Phoenix Suns seven positions behind Goran Suton , who was also born in Bosnia and who was two years his senior , who had already been a student in the United States for four years, also with two other US and Croatian citizenships accepted and never became active for the Bosnian national team .

After Fenerbahçe failed in the ULEB Euroleague 2009/10 due to the poor direct comparison after the preliminary round, they could get back the title of Efes Pilsen in the final series of the championship and this time even win the double . Under the new coach Neven Spahija you could defend both national titles in the following season, Preldžić was named Most Valuable Player of the cup competition. In the ULEB Euroleague 2010/11 it was enough to move into the intermediate round, but the poorer direct comparison to the previous Spanish Eurocup winner Valencia Basket Club prevented the Euroleague play-offs from being reached again. After Preldžić had not played for Slovenia after qualifying for the Olympic Games in 2008, hopes were raised in his native Bosnia that he could play for their national team again. After Preldžić had supposedly shown interest in this option, a "tug of war" between the Bosnian and Slovenian associations had already started in front of the bodies of the world association FIBA , whereby the latter had refused to release. In fact, Preldžić had meanwhile been naturalized in Turkey and his former club coach Tanjević, who had also been naturalized and national coach, brought Preldžić into the Turkish national team and selection of the then vice world champion after the Turkish association "cleared all the stones out of the way" and himself proved to be a "laughing third party". At the European Championship finals in 2011 , however, the vice world champion did not win a game in the intermediate round, including a defeat against the German national team , and in eleventh place again missed the first Olympic participation after the Second World War .

In the intermediate round of the 16 best teams of the ULEB Euroleague 2011/12 , Preldžić and Fenerbahçe were bottom of the group and also lost the two national titles to local rivals and triple winner Beşiktaş Milangaz . After the due change of coach, however, Fenerbahçe remained pale in the 2012/13 season. In the extended intermediate round of the ULEB Euroleague 2012/13 they finished last in the group with only two wins in 14 games, behind the similarly weak master Beşiktaş JK. Although they won the title in the cup competition, this was thwarted by the renewed first round out in the championship play-offs. The 2013 European Championship finals were also disappointing for Preldžić with the Turkish national team when they were eliminated before the second round after four defeats in the preliminary round. Under the new club coach Željko Obradović , Euroleague record winner as a coach, the ULEB Euroleague 2013/14 only narrowly missed the quarter-finals, which, after considerable investments in the squad, was considered a failure. Although they could not defend last year's title win in the cup competition, but in the championship it was enough against arch rivals Galatasaray Istanbul to win the fourth championship for Preldžić with Fenerbahçe. In the 2014 World Cup , Preldžić reached at least the quarter -finals with the Turkish selection, in which they lost to Lithuania . While in the ULEB Euroleague 2014/15 it was enough for the top team to make it into the Final Four tournament for the first time , in which both games were lost, the cup finalist missed a national title after surprisingly in the semi-final play-offs against the later first-time title winner Pınar Karşıyaka were lost. Under coach Obradović, the performance of Preldžić, whose NBA rights have been with the Dallas Mavericks since 2014 after various "trades", stagnated . After the departure of name sponsor Ülker , he then moved to local rivals Darüşşafaka SK Doğuş, where his long-time teammate Gašper Vidmar had previously played and who received a wildcard for the ULEB Euroleague 2015/16 .

Web links

Commons : Emir Preldžić  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• PRELDZIC, EMIR - player profile on the websites of the Euroleague ( English )
• Preldžić, Emir - Turkish Basketball League Player - Profile on the statistics pages of TBLStat.net (English / Turkish)
• Emir Preldžić - Overview of participation in international FIBA tournaments on archive.fiba.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Serbia & Montenegro Gets Past Slovenia In Overtime. FIBA Europa , July 20, 2006, accessed January 8, 2016 . 
2. ^ Ilyasova Claims MVP Prize. FIBA Europa , July 23, 2006, accessed January 8, 2016 . 
3. ↑ Xth Annual Nike Hoop Summit - 2007. (No longer available online.) USA Basketball , April 2007, archived from the original on September 10, 2017 ; accessed on January 8, 2016 (English, match report with statistics). 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.  
4. ↑ Preldzic says NO to Slovenia, chooses Bosnia and Herzegovina. Talkbasket.net, June 21, 2009, accessed on January 8, 2016 (in English, based on an article in the Bosnian newspaper Dnevni Avaz ). 
5. ↑ Kyle Weidie: Just Who Is Emir Preldzic? Bosniak Hero, Washington Wizard. TruthAboutIt.net, February 26, 2010, accessed on January 9, 2016 (see section “International Dispute”). 
6. ↑ Preldžić National Team Career In Limbo. FIBA Europa , March 17, 2011, accessed January 8, 2016 . 
7. ↑ From Bosnia to Turkey: The story of Fenerbahçe's star Emir. Daily Sabah , September 8, 2014, accessed January 8, 2016 .