Dragan Labović ( sr-cyr, Драган Лабовић; born April 20, 1987) is a Serbian former professional basketball player who last played for

BC Nokia BC Nokia is a professional basketball club based in Nokia, Finland. The team currently plays in the top level Korisliiga. History In the 2014–15 season, Nokia won the Finnish First Division and was promoted to the Korisliiga. The team finished i ...

of the Finnish Korisliiga. He also represented the Serbian national basketball team internationally. He is a 2.07 m (6 ft 10 in) tall power forward.

Professional career

Labović grew up with

KK Zdravlje Košarkaški klub Zdravlje ( sr-cyr, Кошаркашки клуб Здравље), commonly referred to as KK Zdravlje or Zdravlje Leskovac, is a men's professional basketball club based in Leskovac, Serbia. They are currently competing in the t ...

from Leskovac. In 2002 he moved to juniors of FMP. He made his debut for the first team during the 2003–04 season, and in next two years he played a couple games for first team. For the 2005–06 season he was loaned to

KK Borac Čačak Košarkaški klub Borac Čačak ( sr-cyr, Кошаркашки клуб Борац Чачак), commonly referred to as KK Borac Čačak or as Borac Mozzart due to sponsorship reasons, is a men's professional basketball club based in Čačak, S ...

where he had minutes to play and chance to improve himself. In 2006 he was invited to play at Nike Hoop Summit in Memphis, Tennessee. After one season at loan he goes back to FMP. With FMP he won the 2007 Serbian Cup. He was the top scorer of the 2008–09 season of the Adriatic League, averaging 18 points per game. On January 3, 2010, he signed with the Greek club Aris. He played only three league games and four Eurocup games, and in March 2010, he moved to

Skyliners Frankfurt The Skyliners Frankfurt, currently known as Fraport Skyliners for sponsorship reasons, are a professional basketball club based in Frankfurt, Germany. Their home arena is Ballsporthalle. The club has played in the Basketball Bundesliga sinc ...

for the rest of the season. The 2010–11 season he played with BC Enisey. For the next season he moved to Krasnye Krylia. In June 2012, he signed a two–year contract with Nizhny Novgorod. He left Nizhny after one season. In November 2013, he signed with the Polish club

AZS Koszalin AZS Koszalin is a Polish basketball team, based in Koszalin. AZS currently plays in the I Liga, the second tier Polish basketball league. History The AZS Koszalin sports club was founded on 8 October 1968. The founding fathers participating in th ...

. He left the club in January 2014, because of family reasons. On January 31, 2014, he signed with

Aliağa Petkim Aliağa Gençlik S.K., known as Aliağa Petkim for sponsorship reasons, was a professional basketball team from the district of Aliağa in İzmir, Turkey. Their home arena was the Enka Sport Hall with a capacity of 2,500 seats. The team competes ...

of the Turkish Basketball League. He left them in April 2014. Later that month he entered the Lebanese League signing with Al Riyadi Club. He left Al Riyadi in May 2014 after playing only two games. In July 2014, he signed a one-year contract with the Romanian team CSU Asesoft Ploiești. In February 2015, he left Asesoft. In 12 league games he averaged 10.7 points per game. He also played 15 games in Eurocup where he had 8.3 points per game. In October 2015, he signed with the Turkish club İstanbul BB. He left Istanbul after appearing in four games. In December 2015, he signed with the Finnish club

for the rest of the season. On July 7, 2016, Labović signed with Macedonian club Karpoš Sokoli for the 2016–17 season. On June 19, 2017, he re-signed with Karpoš Sokoli for one more season. On December 1, 2017, he left Karpoš Sokoli and signed with his former club BC Nokia.

Serbian national team

Youth level

Labović won the gold medal at the 2003 FIBA Europe Under-16 Championship and the 2005 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship. He was MVP at 2005 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship. He was part of the younger generation in the national teams did not lose a single match at official matches, and there he was one of the best players in that generation with Milenko Tepić and Miloš Teodosić.

Full squad

Labović made the Serbian national basketball team under head coach

Moka Slavnić Moka () is a village in Mauritius located in the Moka District, the western part of the village also lies in the Plaines Wilhems District. Since 1967 it forms part of Constituency No. 8 Quartier Militaire and Moka. The village is administered by ...

for the EuroBasket 2007. ;Controversial 2012 press release about Dušan Ivković During summer 2012, head coach Dušan Ivković included Labović on the preliminary list of players for the EuroBasket 2013 qualifying, but the 25-year-old power forward who had spent the preceding club season with

BC Krasnye Krylia BC Krasnye Krylya (russian: БК Красные Крылья, en, BC Red Wings) was a Russian professional basketball club from the city of Samara, Russia. History Krasnye Krylya played in the 2009–10 season of the Russian Super League 1, ...

from

Samara Samara ( rus, Сама́ра, p=sɐˈmarə), known from 1935 to 1991 as Kuybyshev (; ), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with ...

didn't make the final cut. Commenting his decision to exclude Labović, Ivković reportedly stated that "Labović has been having issues with his weight as he recently became a father and probably celebrated a little too much". Stung by Ivković's comment, Labović responded months later, in September 2012, by putting out a bitter, somewhat cryptic, and highly unusual press release published by Serbian sports media outlets. Though Ivković's comments had been made months earlier, Labović's press release came following the completion of the EuroBasket qualifying cycle in which Serbia barely qualified on basket difference despite being in what most considered to be an easy qualifying group alongside Montenegro, Israel, Estonia, Iceland, and Slovakia. In the release, Labović criticizes 68-year-old Ivković's professional integrity and coaching skills, accusing the famous coach of letting his agent

Miško Ražnatović Miodrag "Miško" Ražnatović ( sr-cyr, Миодраг Мишко Ражнатовић; born September 16, 1966) is a Serbian lawyer and sports agent and former professional basketball player. He is the chairman, CEO, and founder of the BeoBas ...

of the BeoBasket agency exert an undue influence when it comes to squad selection for the national team. Among other things, addressing Ivković directly, Labović said: A few weeks after his press release, Labović's club BC Nizhny Novgorod led by a Serbian head coach Zoran Lukić, reprimanded the player although his punishment was not specified.

Personal

On 19 July 2019, Labović was detained by police for public disturbance. The incident occurred at a pool party in the Belgrade suburb of Ovča where reportedly inebriated Labović began smashing bottles and verbally menacing the property's owner, identified in the Serbian press reports as Lazar M., who eventually called the police. After being kept for 12 hours at a

Borča Borča ( sr-cyr, Борча, ) is an urban settlement of the municipality of Palilula, Belgrade, Serbia. , it has a population of 46,086 inhabitants. Location Borča is located just north of the downtown Belgrade, in the Banat section of the mun ...

police station in order to sober up, Labović had a misdemeanour investigation request (''prekršajna prijava'') filed against him. Labović was arrested in the Belgrade suburb of Železnik on 7 December 2021 in the immediate aftermath of an incident that reportedly saw him assault a taxi driver and drive off with his vehicle. The altercation reportedly began when Labović—while getting into the said taxi—took issue with the driver's request to have a seat in the back of the car in accordance with COVID-19 epidemiological measures.

References

External links