KK Partizan
Košarkaški klub Partizan, commonly known as Partizan Belgrade, or as Partizan Mozzart Bet for sponsorship reasons, is a professional basketball club based in Belgrade, Serbia. It is part of the multi-sports Belgrade-based club Partizan. The club is a founding member and shareholder of the Adriatic Basketball Association, and competes in the Serbian League, the ABA League, and the continental top-tier EuroLeague.
Since 1945, Partizan has won 51 trophies and is the holder of the 22 national champion titles. They have also won 16 national basketball cups, 8 Adriatic championships and 1 ABA League Supercup, and most notably the European Champion trophy at the Final Four of the EuroLeague in Istanbul in 1992. The final game was notable for the buzzer-beater by Aleksandar Đorđević which ranks among the most famous shots in basketball history. They also won 3 Korać Cups in 1978, 1979 and 1989 and participated in four Euroleague Final Fours. In September 2009, Partizan became the first and to this day the only Serbian team to play an official game against an NBA team.
History
1945–1971: Formation and early years
The club was established on 4 October 1945, as a basketball section of the Sports Association of the Central House of the Yugoslav Army. The first club championship of Yugoslavia was held in 1946, and Partizan participated with a team consisting mostly of players from Yugoslav Army basketball team, which in 1945 won the unofficial state championship against the teams of Yugoslav republics. KK Partizan officially split from the Army in 1953, since the entire sports society became independent and was renamed as Partizan Yugoslav Sports Association.Although with a strong roster, including many players who played for the national team of Yugoslavia, Partizan waited for the first title of Yugoslav champion until 1976. In the first 30 years of its history, most well-known Partizan players have included Mirko Marjanović, Božidar Munćan, Radomir Šaper, Vilmoš Loci, Lajoš Engler, Čedomir Stojičević, Borislav Stanković, Borislav Ćurčić, Branko Radović, Radovan Radović, Miloš Bojović, Dragutin Čermak, Slobodan Jelić and others. During this period Partizan finished second-placed in the championship of Yugoslavia on five occasions. On two occasions it even had the same number of points as the winner, but barely missed the title of national champion.
1971–1981: Creating a powerhouse
The rise of Partizan into a major basketball club that will eventually become one of the most successful in Europe, started in the early 70's, when former players took over the management and the coaching job was taken by national team coach Ranko Žeravica. He selected a group of young players led by exceptionally talented Dražen Dalipagić and Dragan Kićanović. Since Žeravica, as the national team coach, closely followed the trends of international basketball for more than ten years, including the NBA, he aimed to combine the best features of American and Soviet concepts of the game, and adapt them to the specifics and the mentality of the players from Belgrade, Serbia and the rest of Yugoslavia. He gathered around him other young coaches, and in the late 1970s, when Žeravica went coaching abroad, his former associates Borislav Ćorković and Dušan Ivković successfully took over the team.This important period in the club's history was crowned with several trophies. The first of these was the title of Yugoslav champion in 1975–76 season. Partizan also started to make noise in the European competitions with two back-to-back titles in the European Korać Cup. The first double was won in 1978–79 and another national championship title came in 1980–81.
In addition to coaches Žeravica, Ćorković and Ivković, notable players included, above all Dražen Dalipagić and Dragan Kićanović, but also Dragutin Čermak, Goran Latifić, Josip Farčić, Dragan Todorić, Dušan Kerkez, Miodrag Marić, Boban Petrović, Arsenije Pešić, Boris Beravs, Milenko Savović, Jadran Vujačić, Nebojša Zorkić, Žarko Zečević and others.
1985–1991: The new "Dream Team"
After a couple of quiet years and a generational shift, a new generation of top players developed towards the end of the 1980s, under the leadership of the new club director, Dragan Kićanović.The generation of Željko Obradović, Milenko Savović and Goran Grbović, followed by younger Aleksandar Đorđević, Vlade Divac, Žarko Paspalj, Ivo Nakić, Miroslav Pecarski and Oliver Popović and led by young coach Duško Vujošević, brought Partizan back to the top of Yugoslav and European basketball.
That generation won the title of national champion in 1986–87, and in 1988, following a dominant performance in the quarterfinal round of the Champions Cup and victories over major European clubs including FC Barcelona, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Aris and Tracer Milano, qualified for the Final Four in the Belgian city of Ghent. After an unexpected loss in the semifinals to Maccabi Tel Aviv, Partizan defeated Aris and finished in the third place in Europe.
In 1989, enforced by young Predrag Danilović, Partizan won the FIBA Korać Cup for the third time, triumphing over Wiwa Vismara Cantù. After losing the first game in Italy, Partizan won the return leg in Belgrade with 101–82. That same season, Partizan won the Yugoslav Cup by defeating the crowned European champions Jugoplastika.
Continental recognition of this second great generation of players attracted more talented basketball players to the club, but at the same time, interest from financially more powerful clubs in Europe and the United States for the best Yugoslav players significantly reduced their time spent in the home country. Partizan's Vlade Divac and Žarko Paspalj in late 1989, along with Dražen Petrović from Cibona became the first players from Yugoslavia who pursued their careers in the NBA league.
First team coaches in the mid-1980s also included Borislav Džaković, Vladislav Lučić and Zoran Slavnić.
1991–1992: At the top of Europe
After the departure of Divac, Paspalj, Grbović, Savović and other main players from the 80's, Partizan started the 1991–92 season with a rejuvenated squad, led by an exceptionally talented backcourt pair of Aleksandar Đorđević and Predrag Danilović. A previous team captain and former national team player with no coaching experience, Želimir Obradović, was chosen as a first team coach. Another former Partizan coach and player, an established European basketball expert, professor Aleksandar Nikolić became his counselor.The season didn't start well at all - ethnic conflicts in the region had escalated towards the autumn of 1991 and FIBA decided not to allow teams from the former Yugoslavia to play their home games at their home venues. Belgrade's "Black and Whites" have opted to be "hosts" in the Madrid suburb of Fuenlabrada, in the Polideportivo Fernando Martín arena. This proved to be a right move as the Spanish crowd was very supportive of their adopted team.
Obradović's team began a long season of European and domestic matches, often traveling thousands of kilometers in just a few days, with performance gradually improving. Partizan finished the competition in the group stage in the Euroleague in fourth place with nine wins and five defeats. That meant that Partizan had to play crucial matches to qualify for the Final Four with Knorr Bologna. Bolognese had a strong team led by former Yugoslav national team player Jurij Zdovc. However, Đorđević, Danilović, Ivo Nakić, Zoran Stevanović, Vladimir Dragutinović, Željko Rebrača, Mlađan Šilobad, Slaviša Koprivica, Nikola Lončar and Dragiša Šarić came on top in three games and for the second time qualified for the Final Four.
At the Final Four held in Abdi İpekçi Arena in Istanbul in April 1992, Partizan won the title of European champion. In the Final Four, Partizan won both games – in the semifinals they defeated Italian Philips Milano and in the finals Spanish Montigalà Joventut, with an iconic three-pointer in the last second by Aleksandar Đorđević. The average age of the team was only 21.7 years, and out of 17 games all but one were played on foreign grounds.
The season finished triumphantly with victories in the national championship and the Cup.