Partizan Basketball Fans

The number of people present doesn’t always equal the intensity of the crowd. The most unusual basketball game I’ve watched, when it comes to the fans, could have been the late eighties match-up between Partizan and Maccabi (Tel Aviv), played in Belgrade. It was one of the loudest, too. I had to show up an hour early because having the ticket didn’t guaranty that I would get in. There was no such thing as my own seat, in stark contrast with my first NBA experience in the Garden in Boston. As soon as I found a decent spot, a good angle to see the game from, I saw a group of maybe 300 rabid Partizan fans who chanted with a very strong accent. Their head gear wasn’t much different from the hats and scarves regular Partizan fans wore. As a visitor to the city, not too familiar with the Grobari rituals (“grave diggers” is what Partizan fans call themselves), I asked the guy next to me who they were and he said: “These are Palestinian students, they come every time we play against an Israeli club.”

Basketball means different things to different people. For those young people it was a venue to express their opinion and to vent their frustration. I watched them more closely than the game itself. At first, they chanted something in the language I couldn’t understand. I am sure the chants were similar to the ones which preceded the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia. (It didn’t take long before the fans took the guns in Belgrade.) But I’ll leave that analysis to an observer of a different kind.

Their chants soon became understandable to me, they were less and less contra-Israel, and more and more pro-Partizan. Play by play, these young men got sucked into the game. By the middle of the second half nobody was sitting any more, they trembled with every pass and jumped to every three made by the boys in the black-and-white. When Pecarski, an obscure player who had just been signed by the club, dunked the ball on the first alley-oop I’ve ever seen live, the Palestinian uproar merged with the eruption of the rest of 7,700 fans. For a very brief moment, Miroslav Pecarski might have been bigger than Yasser Arafat.

If you water-boarded me I couldn’t tell you who won that game, and I bet those Palestinians can’t remember either. I could easily find out if I checked one of the many European basketball websites. Although tempted, I will not do it, therefore I will never know. And does it really matter? Bobby Knight once said: “You don’t play against opponents. You play against the game of basketball.” I am still struggling to understand what exactly he meant. Along the same lines, though, maybe that night in Belgrade neither opponent won, maybe the winner that night was the game of basketball. And that’s a possibility which will never be recorded in the official books.

Partizan, Belgrade

Partizan had a lot of success last season, but most of its key players were traded in the off-season (Tepić, Veličković, Tripković, Lasme). As always, Partizan does good scouting and they acquired new players (Alex Marić, McCalleb). It is still early to say, player-by-player it reads like a net loss to me. Marić seems to be somewhat of the force inside and McCalleb has speed, quickness, and mindset to score a lot of baskets, but their long-range shooting is not as much of the threat this year and they don’t have a clear leader on the court when the game is on the line. Partizan started slow both in the Adriatic League and Euroleague.

Cibona, Zagreb

Cibona has struggled financially, players played without the pay for some time. They were blown out by Sienna in their first Euroleague game at home. Then, they lost two more, but finally won a game at home against Zalgiris. Cibona is trying to incorporate some younger players into the roster while relying on Marko Tomas to break the defenses and score a lot of points. So far, the results have been mixed. They do have the best start in the Adriatic League in years as they haven’t lost the game their yet; coming back from Belgrade with a win against Partizan.

I would be surprised if either team did anything significant in the Euroleague this year. Round of 16 would clearly be a huge success. In the Adriatic League, this seems to be the year of Croatian basketball. In addition to Cibona, Zagreb has piled up wins, and Cedevita is in the upper echelons. In the past years, the clubs from Serbia dominated the league to the extent that they questioned the very purpose of participating. If Croatia and Slovenia can consistently add quality to the league, the current debate in Serbia that they just play to improve other countries’ basketball will go away.

Why did I chose exactly these teams. Either because they are geographically close to where I live, so I am more likely to watch live games, or because of the memories from years ago (I used to watch Partizan in the late-eighties and Cibona in the mid-nineties).

This season should be exciting. Cibona has steadied itself under seasoned coaching by Velimir Perasovic. Partizan is hoping to repeat last year successes (coming off their first NBA pre-season tour ever). Their continuity is in their coaching staff led by Dusko Vujosevic, and I am sure they will launch some new young players this year – again. The Celtics have improved their roster by adding Sheed and Daniels, two types of players they desperately needed. Belmont Marauders are loosing three starters and captains from last year: their designated three-point shooter, and both paint players. Between them, they are loosing 60% of all points and 80% of all rebounds. This being said, they have a very solid senior class. Their back-court should be strong especially defensively, their leading scorer is a senior (and hungry for more visibility), and it is yet to be seen if any junior or sophomore will play a significant role this year. Overall, it should be an enjoyable season to watch as I expect the team to play faster and more exciting basketball (last year was a bit on the boring side).

I am running a bit late, as Adriatic League already started and Euroleague has started too. Cibona already played Partizan in Belgrade and came back home with a win. A big win to start the season. Analysis of the game is to come soon. Stay tuned…

Partizan won their first game in the Top 16 this year by beating Lottomatica Roma. After first five minutes, the game was never really in question. Partizan was carried to victory on the wings of an excellent game by Novica Velickovic who scored 19 points and added 10 rebounds. He was active the whole night and he also had 3 assists and 1 block. The guards did their part, too. Tripkovic’s shooting was sharp last night and Tepic added 4 assists to his 9 points. The whole game, Partizan was playing off the energy of some 7,000 fans, who never stopped chanting and singing. This is a very important win for the Belgrade team. Panathinaikos defeated Unicaja in Malaga, keeping the group wide open. Most likely, Partizan will be contending for one of two spots that leads to Top 8 with Unicaja Malaga. They play Unicaja in Belgrade next week and after that game it will be clearer who has an upper hand in the fight to the next round.

A side note: Partizan has been in financial troubles for years. Every year around Christmas, these problems resurface when the arena Pionir shuts down the heat during practice (actually, they don’t shut it down completely, just turn it down to 16C, which is roughly 60F). This year is no different. Partizan management blames the city and state governments for not helping one of the premier clubs in the country. The government says that there are many segments of the society more deserving of help. The fans are frustrated, some are asking where’s the money from all the players sold in the previous years to wealthy European clubs while others are offering to send checks to the Partizan’s bank account. It counts as almost incredible that Partizan remains competitive year after year, mostly on ther home-grown talent.

CSKA 87 – Cibona 61

Cibona didn’t expect to win in Moscow, but they did expect not to be blown out. Losing by 26 points can only ruin their hard-won confidence, and almost wipe away the momentum that the great win from last week gave them. CSKA had evenly distributed scoring, with Trajan Langdon’s 18 points leading the stat sheet. For Cibona, Anderson had a decent game, with 15 points and some rebounds and assists. The veteran Prkacin added 10 points, while Calloway scored only 6 points. The most surprising stat is Davor Kus’ 0 points, and I’ll say it again: zero. Not that he didn’t play much, he was there for full 24 minutes (which is about as much as you can get in European basketball). Kus was supposed to be the leader of this team, and with this kind of leadership they won’t go very far.

The good thing is this was a sort of throw-away game for Cibona. The next game is a must win (they are playing Fenerbahce, a not particularly strong Turkish squad). Cibona has to win consistently at home and steal at list one game away. For their last game, they may play it in the newly built Zagreb Arena, especially if they are close to making it to the next round. Who knows, in front of 16,000 fans they may even give CSKA a game.

After losing Vranes, not a particularly skilled offensive player, but an intimidating defender and shot blocker, Partizan’s guards have lost their touch. They hoisted too many threes early in the shot clock and turned the ball over. The coach Vujosevic wasn’t successful in orchestrating better defensive rotations inside and calming the guards down. Partizan rushed themselves into a loss instead playing a more thoughtful offense. Maybe they should have tried Vesely and Lasme inside, even if Vesely didn’t have his night offensively. Lasme seemed to have been in the groove.

It needs to be mentioned that Panathinaikos shot 17 more free throws. If you are a Partizan fan it is easy to jump to conclusions and blame the refs for being lenient towards the Greeks. Maybe they were somewhat influenced by the 10,000 strong crowd, but they didn’t hand the game over to the Greek team. The truth is that Panathinaikos was way more aggressive attacking the hoop. What may hurt Partizan’s fans even more is that Pekovic was the one to cause havoc in the paint and shot 15 of 27 free throws, making 14 of them along the way. Moreover, he celebrated every dunk as if it was his last, even after the game was already secured.

Then, give credit to Panathinaikos. Their roster is deep, their team defense rock-solid and they have plenty of scoring options. They could alternate Diamantidis and Jasikevicius at point and spread out their scoring from outside (Spanoulis was the only other player in double digits).

This loss puts pressure on Partizan to win against Lottomatica next Wednesday. Panathinaikos is going to Malaga to play Unicaja, which could be one of the most interesting match-ups of Game 2 round of Top 16.

Partizan Guards

Have a look at Partizan shooters, because the outcome of the games vastly depends on their outside shooting.

Uros Tripkovic

Milenko Tepic