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Mirza Delibašić

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Mirza Delibašić
Delibašić with Real Madrid in the early 1980's
Personal information
Born(1954-01-09)9 January 1954
Tuzla, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia
Died8 December 2001(2001-12-08) (aged 47)
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
NationalityBosnian
Listed height1.97 m (6 ft 6 in)
Listed weight87 kg (192 lb)
Career information
NBA draft1976: undrafted
Playing career1968–1983
PositionShooting guard
Number12
Coaching career1993–1994
Career history
Playing
1968–1972Sloboda Tuzla
1972–1980Bosna
1980–1983Real Madrid
1983Juve Caserta
Coaching
1993–1994Bosnia and Herzegovina
Career highlights
FIBA Hall of Fame
Medals
Men's Basketball
Representing  Yugoslavia
World Cup
Bronze medal – third place 1982 Colombia
Gold medal – first place 1978 Philippines
EuroBasket
Silver medal – second place 1981 Czechoslovakia
Bronze medal – third place 1979 Italy
Gold medal – first place 1977 Belgium
Gold medal – first place 1975 Yugoslavia
Summer Olympic Games
Gold medal – first place 1980 Moscow
Silver medal – second place 1976 Montreal
European Championship for Juniors
Gold medal – first place 1972 Yugoslavia Under-18
European Championship for Cadets
Gold medal – first place 1971 Italy Under-16

Mirza Delibašić (9 January 1954 – 8 December 2001) was a Bosnian professional basketball player and coach. He is widely considered one of the greatest players in the history of European basketball.[1][2][3]

Delibašić was named one of FIBA's 50 Greatest Players in 1991. He was enshrined into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2008, he was named one of the 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors.

Early life

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Mirza Delibašić was born on 9 January 1954 in Tuzla, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia to Izet Delibašić, a native of Kakanj, and Zajkana (née Mehičević) from Ljubuški.[4] Young Mirza took up tennis, excelling at it. By the age of fourteen, he switched to basketball.

Club career

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Delibašić, nicknamed Kinđe, led his club Bosna to the EuroLeague Championship in 1979. He played his first games aged 15 for KK Sloboda Dita, Tuzla's basketball club. Three years later, in 1971, he signed a contract with KK Bosna.

After leaving Bosna, Delibašić went to the Spanish Primera División, where he ended up being considered one of the best players ever to play for Real Madrid, along with the likes of Juan Corbalán, Wayne Brabender, Fernando Martín Espina, Fernando Romay, Dražen Petrović, and Arvydas Sabonis.

In his club career, he won numerous titles in European club competitions. In addition to having played together for their Yugoslav national team, Delibašić and Dražen Dalipagić, also played together at Real Madrid. Their performance in a 1983 European Champions Cup game against Cibona in Zagreb, is only one of the many highlights of their careers. In that game, Delibašić scored 26 points and Dalipagić 33. The game appropriately finished with a two-on-one fast-break, with Delibašić making a behind-the-back fake pass to Dalipagić, and passing by a defender for a two-handed dunk at the buzzer. Cibona's fans put aside their team's loss in the game, and showed their appreciation for their performances, with a standing ovation at the end of the game.

Career ending

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In early summer 1983, twenty-nine-year-old Delibašić left Real Madrid and signed with the Italian League club JuveCaserta coached by his former Bosna mentor Bogdan Tanjević.

In August 1983, the team went for preseason training and conditioning to the town of Bormio in the Italian Alps. Following the gruelling altitude training, after coming back south to Caserta, Delibašić suffered a near-fatal brain hemorrhage that would turn out to be career-ending. With Delibašić in critical condition, a private plane was immediately organized to airlift him to the Military Medical Academy (VMA) in Belgrade where he was hospitalized for months. He survived and recovered, but not enough to return to playing professional basketball thus being forced into retirement effective immediately at only the age of twenty nine.

National team career

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En route to a place among the greatest European players, Delibašić won every major FIBA tournament with the senior Yugoslavia national team, including: the gold medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics, EuroBasket gold two times (1975 and 1977), and the FIBA World Cup gold at the 1978 FIBA World Championship.

Coaching career

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Delibašić lived in Sarajevo throughout the 1992–1996 siege of the city during the Bosnian War. Simultaneously, he coached the newly established Bosnian national basketball team at EuroBasket 1993 in Germany, where they finished in 8th place.[5]

Personal life

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Marriages

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In the late 1970s, Delibašić married his girlfriend Branka. The couple had a son Dario born in late December 1979, before divorcing shortly thereafter in 1980 upon Delibašić's move abroad to play with Real Madrid.

By 1984, Delibašić began dating professional basketball player Slavica Šuka, playing with ŽKK Bosna.[6] In summer 1986, with Šuka six months pregnant, the couple married in a civic ceremony in Trebinje with former professional basketball player Zdravko Čečur as the groom's best man.[7] Several months later, in October, the couple had a son named Danko.

Children

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Delibašić's son with Branka, Dario Delibašić, would follow in his father's footsteps by becoming a professional basketball player, spending time with KK Crvena zvezda, KK Zadar, and KK Bosna.[8][9] In 2015, Dario, by then residing in Sarajevo and pursuing hospitality entrepreneurship via running a restaurant in the city, was tried in absentia in Udine on a drug trafficking charge, allegedly as part of a Balkans-based organized crime group whose members were on trial simultaneously; Dario received a 6-year prison sentence, which he never served due to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Italy not having an extradition treaty.[10][11] In May 2019, Dario was apprehended by the Sarajevo Canton police on suspicion of being an accomplice in the 20 April 2019 kidnapping of Tamer Kilerdži, a Sarajevo-based nargila bar owner;[12][13] Dario ended up spending 2 months in prison detention before being released.[14]

Death

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Due to his heavy drinking and smoking, Delibašić final years were marked by persistent health problems that led to his death in 2001 in Sarajevo, aged 47. At a funeral attended by thousands, he was interred next to his close friend—singer Davorin Popović who had died earlier that year—at Bare Cemetery's Alley of Greats.

Legacy

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A statue of Delibašić in front of the Mirza Delibašić Hall in Sarajevo, unveiled in 2022

Following Delibašić's death, Skenderija Hall was renamed to the Mirza Delibašić Hall in his honor. The Mirza Delibašić Memorial, an international basketball tournament between clubs, has been held annually since 2005 in Sarajevo.[15]

In December 2018, the Basketball Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina changed the name of the national cup championship to the Mirza Delibašić Cup.[16][17][18]

Awards and accomplishments

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Professional career

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ "REAL MADRID C.F. - ERROR". www.realmadrid.com. Retrieved 3 September 2025.
  2. ^ "101 Greats: Mirza Delibasic - KOS magazin". KOS magazin. 22 June 2020. Archived from the original on 12 June 2024. Retrieved 3 September 2025.
  3. ^ j.t.d, ABA liga. "Remembering the romantic times of Mirza Delibašić's basketball : ABA League". ABA Liga. Retrieved 3 September 2025.
  4. ^ "Bogdan Tanjević: Kako je Mirza postao Sarajlija". Ljubusaci.com. 8 December 2018. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
  5. ^ "Košarkaška reprezentacija BiH je 1993. Ostvarila najveći uspjeh – osmo mjesto".
  6. ^ Glušac, Borislav (1987). "Ljubav između koševa". Ven. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  7. ^ Zećo, Elma (22 April 2005). "Slavica Delibašić: Moj život bez Mirze". Gracija.info (in Serbian). Retrieved 5 August 2025.
  8. ^ Dario Delibasic FIBA profile
  9. ^ Dario Delibasic ABA League profile
  10. ^ Antonutti, Cristina (10 February 2015). "Tradito dallo shopping, arrestato il narcotrafficante dei Balcani". Il Gazzettino.it (in Italian). Retrieved 5 August 2025.
  11. ^ "Dario Delibašić u Italiji osuđen na šest godina zbog trgovine drogom". Klix.ba (in Serbian). 18 May 2019. Retrieved 5 August 2025.
  12. ^ "U Sarajevu uhapšen Dario Delibašić zbog otmice državljanina Turske". Klix.ba (in Serbian). 17 May 2019. Retrieved 5 August 2025.
  13. ^ "Sin legendarnog Kinđeta lišen slobode!". Crna-hronika.info (in Serbian). Oslobodjenje. 17 May 2019. Retrieved 5 August 2025.
  14. ^ "Dario Delibašić pušten iz pritvora uz određene mjere zabrane". Klix.ba (in Serbian). 11 July 2019. Retrieved 5 August 2025.
  15. ^ "Efes osvojio memorijalni turnir Mirza Delibašić". klix.ba. Retrieved 8 September 2019.
  16. ^ "Kup BiH mijenja ime u Kup 'Mirza Delibašić'". preporod.info. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
  17. ^ "KUP BiH mijenja ime u Kup Mirza Delibašić". basket.ba. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
  18. ^ "Kup BiH u košarci mijenja ime u Kup Mirze Delibašića". aa.com.tr. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
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