by Alberto Bortolotti
The remembrance of Drazen Dalipagic cannot begin except with a kind of basketball homily by the greatest guru of their basketball, the Julian/Slovenian Sergio Tavcar: “... three champions that cannot be discussed were Dragan ‘Cobra’ Kićanović, Dražen ‘Praja’ Dalipagić and Vlade Divac. All of these were players who on the day gave the distinct feeling of being unmarkable, a characteristic that distinguishes the champion from the mere champion. On these players my conviction is of the 'Taucerian' type, that is, absolute.”
Speaking of definitions, in Belgrade Partizan fans used to call them “Kića i Praja, pobede bez kraja” (Kića and Praja, endless victories). And, as for personality, here's-perhaps-an urban legend: the story goes that, at some point during preparation, Dalipagić went to the granite Professor Nikolic, his coach, on behalf of the entire team. “Coach, maybe it would be better if you also listened to what we want. Because you the championship without us will not be able to win it, while we, even without you, could probably still win it.”
As for the 70-point record, I remember well that January 25, 1987, the day of 70 points. I was in the newsroom at Rete 7, waiting to make the full-bodied Sunday “Sport Today,” the sports newscast that could not avoid dealing in depth with Bologna, Fortitudo and Virtus (all playing on Sunday afternoons, the “lunch match” and “football night” were stuff, perhaps, from the NFL). A few weeks earlier we had called MartyByrnes, the algid, off-white foreigner brought in by a somewhat retreating Avvocato Porelli and who would, that Sunday at Arsenal, mark Praja Dalipagic (barring rare, unplanned moments in the zone), a “tristo”: a Bolognese adjective meaning poor. He raged about it but eventually agreed with us, in spite of the treatment that coach Sandro Gamba applied to that rebellious and uncombative outfielder. At the end of the season he was dismissed.
It amazed the scoreboard that said 70 points (the 3-point shot had come just three seasons earlier, but I almost think he would have made that haul anyway!) however, it did not amaze the hail of blows that sunk the black Vs among the Venetian calli. After all, Dalipagic was the one who “chewed up” 600 solo shots at the end of each practice, so much so that he had the custodian give him a copy of the gym keys because he, the Bosnian from Mostar when Bosnia-Herzegovina was still perhaps a region of the Titino empire, wanted to exercise the basically peculiar characteristic of basket ball: the basket, indeed. It's called “basket ball,” this sport, I often remind my friend Ettore Messina of it, too. And of the deep essence of that sport Dalipagic was probably the most faithful, attentive interpreter, a kind of guardian of the Holy Grail: the shot, in its absolutism and in its technical and stylistic purity. A living manual.
In 1987 Praja had just retired from the “plavi” national team, which then defunct, as an entity, in '91 in Rome when Slovenia came out first from Yugoslavia and Jure Zdovc was removed, as if he were a thief, from the Capitoline retreat. His generation predates the glittering generation that so many remember: the Petrovic, Kukoc, Radja, Savic, Divac, Danilovic, Djordjevic, and 100 others we could name.
All I know is that, for us high schoolers discovering color on TV and irreverent commentaries from Koper/Capodistria, almost always with the unmistakable voice of Sergio Tavcar, there was a trimurti. The Three Gods of the time were Mirza Delibasic, point guard, DraganKicanovic, guard, Drazen Dalipagic, wing.
Ah, if you don't believe in the possibility of 70 points “without 3-point shooting,” read this Udinese anecdote. 46 points, then the next week 50, “without 3 point line.” But let's go in order.
During one of the shooting sessions the young assistant coach Colosetti had occasion to tell the champion from Mostar that before him he had known and coached one of his peers, Walter Szczerbiak.
“In a shooting session with Praja I told him that I had worked with another great shooter in Udine: Walter.” Lapidary was the response of the astonished Dalipagic: “Yes, great hand, but I am more complete because I also play one-on-one and create my own shot.”
The coach again: “Drazen took us to A1 by winning the top scorer title and scoring 46 points against Perugia and 50 against Reggio Emilia in the last two decisive games, when there was still no three-point shooting and he was already 32. Forty years ago, the career did not last as it does now until almost forty years of age. Five or six years earlier Dalipagic was at his peak, when he was winning World Championships and Olympics he was infeasible. He was in the prime of athletic vigor at 27 or 28, while at 32 he was playing technique in shooting. He was not a great defender, but, when stimulated, he also defended.”
Translated with DeepL.com