Mitja Nikolić

Mitja Nikolić
2016 Basketball ÖBV four-nation tournament
Player information
Full name	Mitja Nikolić Smrdelj
birthday	February 24, 1991
place of birth	Postojna, Slovenia
size	200 cm
position	Small forward
Club information
society	KK Union Olimpija
league	League Telemach / ABA League
Jersey number	10
Clubs as active
2006–2007 KD Slovan 2007–2008 KK Olimpija 2008–2009 KD Geoplin Slovan 2009–2013 KK Zlatorog Laško 2013–2014 KK Rogaška 2014–2015 USK Prague Since 2015 KK Union Olimpija 0
National team
	Slovenia

Mitja Nikolić Smrdelj (born February 24, 1991 in Postojna ) is a Slovenian basketball player . Nikolić was introduced to his career at the leading clubs Union Olimpija and Slovan in the capital Ljubljana , but was only able to assert himself after a stint abroad in Prague in the Czech Republic and become a national player and participant in the 2015 European Championship . Since 2015 he has been playing again for the Slovenian record champions KK Union Olimpija in Ljubljana. After a professional career as a player, his father David is a basketball coach and his four years younger brother Aleksej is also a professional basketball player and national player.

Career

From the age of 15, Nikolić played alternately in the capital Ljubljana for the leading clubs Union Olimpija and Slovan. In 2009 he left the capital and played for KK Zlatorog in Laško , which, however , had already had its best times with participation in the ABA league . In 2010 it was enough to move into the national cup final, which was lost to defending champion Olimpija. Then they were eliminated three times in a row in the play-off semi-finals for the national championship. After four years, Nikolić finally moved to the club from Rogaška Slatina in 2013 , who have played first-class again since 2011. With this club he was able to qualify for the first time since the promotion for the play-offs expanded to eight participants, in which they were eliminated in the first round against KK Helios Domžale . Nikolić then moved abroad for the first time and played for the traditional Czech club USK Slavia in Prague in the 2014/15 season , which had missed the championship finals twice in a row and separated from his long-time coach Ken Scalabroni . But things didn't go any better under the new coach and the USK only reached the penultimate place in the main round of the Národní basketbalová liga . Despite the moderate performance of his team, Nikolić was considered one of the best legionnaires of European origin in the league and was able to make himself interesting again for the national team of his homeland.

After Nikolić had initially played in almost all of Slovenia’s junior national team without having achieved any particular success with these teams in the finals of the European Championships (EM), national coach Jurij Zdovc nominated him for the first time in 2015 for a final squad for the men, after having won a The year before, Nikolić's brother Aleksej, who was four years younger than him, took him to the 2014 World Cup . With Mitja Nikolić, but without Aleksej and especially Goran Dragić , the Slovenian men's selection reached the second round at the 2015 European Championship finals , which was then lost to Latvia . Mitja Nikolić returned to his homeland for the 2015/16 season and plays in Ljubljana for record champions KK Union Olimpija, who had previously failed in the first play-off round and for the first time since 2000 had not reached the final series of the Slovenian championship. Nevertheless, Olimpija starts in the Eurocup 2015/16 in addition to the ABA league .

Web links

• NIKOLIC, MITJA - Player profile on the website of the Euro Cup ( English )
• Mitja Nikolić - Overview of participation in international FIBA tournaments on archive.fiba.com (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ NBL_2014-2015 Basketball League. Eurobasket.com, accessed on November 22, 2015 (English, season summary with individual awards; see “All-Bosmans Team”).