Danko Cvjetićanin (often credited as Cvjetičanin; born 16 October 1963) is a Croatian

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

scout and former player. Cvjetićanin won two silver medals at the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

, one with

Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...

(

1988 1988 was a crucial year in the early history of the Internet—it was the year of the first well-known computer virus, the Morris worm, 1988 Internet worm. The first permanent intercontinental Internet link was made between the United State ...

) and the other with

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

(

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

). Cvjetićanin, who started his career with Partizan, won the European Club Championship with Cibona in 1986. He also played professionally in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

and

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Early life

Born in Zagreb, six-year-old Cvjetićanin moved to the Yugoslav

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

Belgrade along with his parents and sister when his sociologist father Vladimir Cvjetićanin, whose

areas of study An academic discipline or academic field is a subdivision of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined (in part) and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, a ...

primarily focused on the social structure of the Yugoslav population, took a management position at the state-owned

Ivo Lola Ribar Ivan Ribar (23 April 1916 – 27 November 1943), known as Ivo Lola or Ivo Lolo, was a Yugoslavs, Yugoslav Croats, Croat communist politician and military leader. In the 1930s, he became one of the closest associates of Josip Broz Tito, leader of ...

metallurgical Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the ...

factory in the Belgrade suburb of

Železnik Železnik ( sr-cyr, Железник, ) is an List of Belgrade neighborhoods, urban neighborhood of Belgrade, Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Čukarica. Location Železnik is located in the central part of the Čukarica mun ...

. Growing up during the 1970s in Belgrade, Cvjetićanin attended the Drinka Pavlović Primary School. Being a tall yet mobile kid, he soon took up basketball in the

OKK Beograd Omladinski košarkaški klub Beograd ( sr-cyr, Омладински кошаркашки клуб Београд), commonly referred to as OKK Beograd, is a men's professional basketball club based in Belgrade, Serbia. They are currently competin ...

youth categories before transferring to

KK Partizan Košarkaški klub Partizan ( sr-Cyrl, Кошаркашки клуб Партизан, lit=Basketball Club Partizan), commonly known as Partizan Belgrade, or as Partizan Mozzart Bet for sponsorship reasons, is a professional basketball Sports cl ...

's youth system where he was coached by

Duško Vujošević Duško Vujošević ( sr-Cyrl, Душко Вујошевић; born 3 March 1959) is a Serbian former basketball Coach (basketball), coach. He is currently active as coach consultant of the Montenegrin ABA League club KK Studentski centar, Studen ...

. While playing youth basketball in the late 1970s, teenage Cvjetićanin idolized two Yugoslav basketball stars with body type and skill set similar to his own—

Dragan Kićanović Dragan Kićanović (; born 17 August 1953) is a Serbian and Yugoslav retired professional basketball player. A tall shooting guard, Kićanović played in the 1970s and 1980s, and is considered to be one of the best European players and scorers ...

and

Mirza Delibašić Mirza Delibašić (9 January 1954 – 8 December 2001) was a Bosnian professional basketball player and coach. 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 ...

Club playing career

KK Partizan

Cvjetićanin began his basketball career with KK Partizan.

KK Cibona

In 1985, right before his 22nd birthday, Cvjetićanin transferred to

KK Cibona Košarkaški klub Cibona, commonly referred to as Cibona Zagreb or simply Cibona, is a men's professional basketball club based in Zagreb, Croatia. The club is a founding member and shareholder of the Adriatic Basketball Association, and compete ...

, reigning European Champions Cup and Yugoslav League champions. The transfer was precipitated by his parents moving back to Zagreb. Arriving to Cibona as replacement at shooting guard for Aco Petrović who was away serving his mandatory

Yugoslav People's Army The Yugoslav People's Army (JNA/; Macedonian language, Macedonian, Montenegrin language, Montenegrin and sr-Cyrl-Latn, Југословенска народна армија, Jugoslovenska narodna armija; Croatian language, Croatian and ; , J ...

(JNA) stint, Cvjetićanin made his club debut in November 1985 during week 5 of the league season versus lowly Sloga Kraljevo, scoring 36 points. He then saw reduced playing time versus

KK Zadar Košarkaški klub Zadar (), commonly referred to as KK Zadar or simply Zadar, is a men's professional basketball Sports club, club based in Zadar, Croatia. The club is a founding member and shareholder of the ABA League JTD, Adriatic Basketball A ...

, leading to antagonism with Cibona head coach

Željko Pavličević Željko Pavličević (born 26 March 1951) is a Croatian professional basketball coach and former player. He currently serves as the head coach for Eastern Sports Club (basketball), Eastern in ASEAN Basketball League. Early life Pavličević began ...

, a temporary conflict that saw Cvjetićanin not show up for the team's post-game meeting in protest. Accepting criticism over his application on the defensive end, Cvjetićanin was soon reinstated.

National team

Youth

Together with fellow Yugoslav league youth prospects

Dražen Petrović Dražen Petrović (; 22 October 1964 – 7 June 1993) was a Yugoslav and Croatian professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he initially achieved success playing professional basketball in Europe in the 1980s with Cibona and Real Madri ...

, Stojko Vranković,

Velimir Perasović Velimir Perasović (; born 9 February 1965) is a Croatian professional basketball coach and former player. He is serving as the head coach for the Russian team BC UNICS, UNICS Kazan of the VTB United League. Early life Perasović was born in Stob ...

, Zoran Jovanović, Goran Sobin, and Ivo Petović, Partizan player Cvjetićanin made the Rusmir Halilović-coached Yugoslavia junior national team that got silver at the 1982 FIBA European Junior Championship in Dimitrovgrad and

Haskovo Haskovo ( ) is a city in the region of Northern Thrace in southern Bulgaria and the administrative centre of the Haskovo Province, not far from the borders with Greece and Turkey. According to Operative Program Regional Development of Bulgaria ...

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Full squad

Cvjetićanin made Yugoslavia's national team for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul led by head coach

Dušan Ivković Dušan "Duda" Ivković ( sr-Cyrl, Душан "Дуда" Ивковић; 29 October 1943 – 16 September 2021) was a Serbian professional basketball player and coach. He served as head coach of the senior Serbian national basketball team from 2 ...

. Appearing in 8 games at the tournament, the shooting guard received significant minutes, contributing 9.8 points per game—thus being the team's fourth best scorer at the tournament behind

Vlade Divac Vlade Divac ( sr-Cyrl, Владе Дивац, ; born February 3, 1968) is a Serbian professional basketball executive and former player who was most recently the vice president of basketball operations and general manager of the Sacramento King ...

, and

Žarko Paspalj Žarko Paspalj (Serbian Cyrillic: Жарко Паспаљ; born March 27, 1966) is a retired Serbian professional basketball player and sports administrator. The EuroLeague Final Four MVP in 1994, his sixteen and a half seasons career was mostly ...

—as Yugoslavia made the final where they lost to Soviet Union. Playing in the backcourt with his Cibona club teammate Dražen Petrović or Partizan's

Željko Obradović Željko Obradović ( sr-cyrl, Желимир "Жељко" Обрадовић, ; born 9 March 1960) is a Serbian professional basketball Coach (basketball), coach and former professional player who is the head coach for KK Partizan, Partizan of the ...

, Cvjetićanin's best scoring outing came at the preliminary group stage with 18 points versus the minnows of the group,

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

. He also had an important 16-point contribution (on 83.3% field goal percentage including 4 of 4 three-pointers) in the quarter-final versus

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

in only 17 minutes of action, taking advantage of Canada's defensive focus on Yugoslavia's star player and leading scorer, Petrović.

Post-playing career

After playing career, Cvjetićanin worked as the European scouting coordinator for the

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

Philadelphia 76ers The Philadelphia 76ers, also known colloquially as the Sixers, are an American professional basketball team based in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The 76ers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Atlan ...

from 1998 to 2010. He has been performing the same position for the

New Jersey Nets New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995 * "New" (Daya song), 2017 * "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...

since 2010.

Personal life

Cvjetićanin married Nika Antunac. In January 1993, while Cvjetićanin was playing professionally with

CB Estudiantes Club Baloncesto Estudiantes, S.A.D., (English: Club Basketball Students) known simply as Estu and as Movistar Estudiantes for sponsorship reasons, is a basketball team based in the city of Madrid, Spain. It is a member of the Liga ACB, Asociación ...

, their son, Filip, was born in Spain. Following in his father's footsteps, Filip Cvjetićanin would end up pursuing basketball as well, starting out in the Estudiantes youth categories before switching to

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

in the United States at the

Florida Gulf Coast University Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) is a public university in Lee County, Florida, near Fort Myers. It is part of the State University System of Florida and is its second-youngest member. The university was established on May 3, 1991, and is acc ...

. After divorcing Antunac, Cvjetićanin married Marga Pirjać. The couple has two children, daughter Lana (born in 2014) and son Tin (born in 2016).

References

External links

Danko Cvjetićanin
at ACB.com * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cvjeticanin, Danko 1963 births Living people Basketball players at the 1988 Summer Olympics Basketball players at the 1992 Summer Olympics Brooklyn Nets scouts CB Estudiantes players Croatian basketball scouts Croatian expatriate basketball people in Italy Croatian expatriate basketball people in Spain Yugoslav men's basketball players Croatian expatriate basketball people in the United States Croatian men's basketball players KK Cibona players KK Partizan players KK Zrinjevac players Liga ACB players Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics NBA scouts from Europe Olympic basketball players for Yugoslavia Olympic silver medalists for Croatia in basketball Olympic silver medalists for Yugoslavia Pallacanestro Reggiana players Philadelphia 76ers scouts Serbs of Croatia Shooting guards Basketball players from Zagreb 1986 FIBA World Championship players 1994 FIBA World Championship players Goodwill Games medalists in basketball