February 1, 2020 - Toni Kukoc, the famous Split basketball player who became one of the first established European players in the NBA, is once again in the NBA spotlight.
Anyone that followed the NBA in the 90s knows that Croatian basketball player Toni Kukoc contributed to the golden era of the Chicago Bulls - the age of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman. With the Bulls, Kukoc won the NBA championship three times. He then went on to win the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award in 1996, and was the 4th and currently the last player to win the award and the NBA title in the same year.
Today, Kukoc still plays a part in the NBA - he is the Special Advisor to Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf.
Despite his success, Kukoc is still often overlooked as one of the NBA greats. Author Sam Smith tries to persuade readers that Kukoc was far more vital to the NBA then he’s given credit for.
“There's this misconception about the world's most famous basketball team, the 1992 Olympics Dream Team of NBA legends, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen, Karl Malone, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing and the rest. The conventional wisdom is that the team was assembled to display the brilliance of basketball in the United States.
And, to some extent, that is accurate.
But the overriding reason why USA Basketball began scrambling around to gather its greatest was because they'd pretty much given up trying to beat Vlade Divac, Dino Radja, Drazen Petrovic and Toni Kukoc, the core of the Yugoslavian national team,” author Smith begins.
In the piece, Smith highlights Kukoc’s European basketball career and international success with Yugoslavia.
“Kukoc's international resume is almost a hall of fame of its own. In addition to the medals from those victories over top U.S. teams, Kukoc was repeatedly honored in Europe.
Kukoc won the European Player of the Year award five times. He won the media's player of the year award as Mr. Europe four times. He led his team to three straight European championships and was final four MVP three times. He was a four-time Yugoslavian league champion and MVP of the team that included Petrovic and Radja, the latter his boyhood neighbor. He was MVP of the world championships in Argentina. He was the slickest ballhandler this side of Magic Johnson and was known as, ‘White Magic.’"
His Yugoslavian teammate Vlade Divac even chimed in.
"His impact in the NBA was great. Especially that second threepeat; he was a main guy, Sixth Man winner," noted Divac. "He was someone who sacrificed. He was a big, big thing in Europe and he came here and sacrificed to be a role player.”
Divac goes on to say that Toni should have been inducted in the NBA Hall of Fame even before him or Dino (Radja).
Sam Smith believes that now is his time.
You can read the full article on the NBA website here.
To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page.
