So I’m sitting here at Staples Center Wednesday night – soon to be called Crypto.com Arena (eyeroll) – and I’m watching our boy Ivica Zubac do his thing against the Kings. And I’m wondering to myself, what’s the problem with Croatian basketball and who is going to be the face of Croatian b-ball moving forward?
The team is currently having an identity crisis – missing out on the 2020 summer Olympics – and our best player, Bojan Bogdanović, is 32 years old. Dario Šarić is still recovering from a torn ACL he suffered in Game 1 of the NBA Finals this year. So who is going to step up? Because someone has to.
Zubac is having a wonderfully quiet season with the Kawhi-less Clippers. The seven-footer is starting every game for the Clippers and is shooting 65% from the field. However, he’s only averaging 9.8 points and eight rebounds per game in his 24 minutes on the court. The 24 year-old from Herzegovina is 75% from the free-throw line but still hasn’t managed an outside shot like Jokić has to be a threat from downtown.
This is a prime opportunity to take an average Clippers team (without Kawhi) and show leadership that could transfer over to the international scene. Zu is a lovable guy in the locker room and has grown up quickly in LA since his rookie season with the Lakers.
Who else can stand up for Croatian basketball during the next decade? I think Zubac is the guy we have to look to on a Croatian team that hasn’t seemed relevant since Petrović played in the 90s.
Zubac scored 17 points from 8/10 shooting against the Kings in a 124-115 loss Wednesday night.
Due to COVID protocols, I couldn’t join Zu in the locker room following the game. However, I did get some questions over to him.
I asked Zubac what he thought of being the face of Croatian basketball.
Where did he watch the Croatia/Russia game and what he thought of the match?
Did he have pig or lamb at his wedding in Herzegovina this past summer?
Ok
Let’s make a team national from say dalmacija, slavonija, Bosna, and Zagreb areas
See who can field the best team
Slavonija, Dalmacija, and Zagreb have been the main sources of our talent.
Zagreb, however, draws a lot from second generation Dalmatinci, Bosanci and Hercegovci.
Very few (if any) come from Istra, Lika, and Kvarner. Some come from Bosna, but mainly as second generation dijaspora types. Few come from Bosna directly, but then again, there aren’t many Croats left there.
I mean black americans are successful in basketball. africans not so much. bosnian croats would be more successful if there was money in bosnia
We need more basketball content on the site!
It’s nice to see some basketball mentioned on the site. He is good player but needs to develop a shot to go to the next level.
I wonder if it’s worth commenting on the fact that so many of “our” athletes come from Bosnia. Is this a reflection of a talent drain in Croatia proper? It seems almost all our new talent is born in Bosnia, which, no matter what people want to say, is another country to Croatia.
Depends what you mean by this.
Are you talking about those “born” in BiH…or those with “ancestry” from BiH?
If you’re talking about people actually “born” or raised in BiH, then the amount of footballers is extremely low (considering how may BiH Croats there are).
From our National Team, we only have ONE player from BiH…and it’s one of our worse players in Dejan Lovren. This number should be higher.
As for “ancestry” in BiH, then we have Kovacic, Sucic, Brekalo, and Sosa.
However, this is a tough one because none of these guys were born or raised in BiH, so it’s hard to determine whether it played any factor in them being good footballers (as they were all raised in either Austria or Zagreb, which are both fantastic places in developing footballers).
But remember, BiH has about half a million Croats…so that would amount to about 12-15% of our population.
I would expect there to be at least a few more Croats from BiH on our National Team.
I think because BiH Croats are generally poorer and are raised largely in rural areas (like the selo), that their parents are more open to going ‘all in’ on sports with their kids.
However, BiH itself is not a great place to develop your youth.
This is probably why BiH players who move to other countries and are raised in places like Zagreb, Austria, Switzerland…tend to do well in sports, because their parents have that selo mentality of going “all-in” on football…but they actually have access to good footballing programs that they didn’t have in BiH.
It’s similar to how Kosovo Albanians from outside Kosovo are excellent footballers…much better than those from Kosovo or Albania itself.
Great point! It’s also noteworthy that a number of Croatia’s youth players have gone on to play senior football for BiH because they likely wouldn’t have been able to continue representing Croatia internationally beyond the youth level. I’m thinking of Mato Jajalo, who is still playing in Serie A, as an example of that, though I can remember a number of prospects who represented Croatia at youth level and then went to the BiH senior side
Interesting, I thought a lot more were born in Bosnia like Cilic, Zubac, Bogdanovic but indeed quite a few are born abroad to Bosnian parents. It’s still a trend I’ve noticed and the reasons you cite make sense.
There are always outliers I guess.
Like…how did Medjugorje (of all places) produce two world class tennis players in Cilic and Dodig?
Our best tennis players come from Zagreb, Split and Medjugorje, lol.
Also, Mostar (and the surrounding area) tend to be a hotbed for basketball (Zubac, Bogdanovic, Planinic, Barac, Bender, Sesar, etc).
Seems like if you’re a Croat from Mostar, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be picked in the NBA draft (because all these guys were).
Dubrovnik also produces probably the highest pro waterpolo players per capita in the world. Half our national team is from there, and Dubrovnik has a very small population.
I think a lot of the BiH factor you were talking about is largely reflected in the basketball hotbed of Mostar, and the Gospa-trained tennis skills of the few residents that exist in Medjugorje.
In other sports, we do have BiH representation…but nothing too crazy outside of basketball and tennis.
I am moreso impressed with the caliber of footballers that Slavonija produces for us (Suker, Mandzo, Olic, Rapaic, Vlaovic, Babic, Vida, Barisic…and Pongracic, Rakitic, Stanisic if we include those with ancestry there).