Dušan Ivković, The Story

The beginning of his presence in Greece through Aris was also the beginning of the myth that Duda does not get along well with the divas, the star players of his teams.

This label was introduced initially with Galis and was consolidated with Fasoulas, whom he coached both in Olympiacos and PAOK. You don't have to tell him much about it, he knows very well the image that some people have of him, but he knows even better his own truth and how to convey it.

¨In Greece they used to say "Duda doesn't care for divas". Have you heard that? Do you know what that means?

So I worked very hard with those who were willing to pursue their maximum improvement. You know, in those years there was a philosophy that the best players shouldn't come to the morning training, but should instead sleep and rest.

I couldn't work like that, I wanted to do individual technique and tactics training. The players are always close to the reporters and say many things.

But as the years went by, they understood that with the work they do in training comes the big improvement and everyone wins in the end. That's my philosophy.

Nowadays, basketball is different, the best players have a personal tainer, a psychologist and work on everything. I used to always work on my own and I believe that in order to do all this you have to not only be a coach, but also a leader, you have to have personality.

In order to get something out of all this hard work. Some people try to work hard and long, but they get a negative result. You have to know how you work and who you work with. Take Galis for example.

Nikos Galis was a different player back then. Waht I mean when I say "different": he had a very strong body. He was a tremendous defender and had great scoring instinct.

When we faced the best point guards in Greece, like Takis Koroneos, Kyriakos Vidas, Paul Melini, they couldn't get a point past him. He was a very good defender and scorer.

At that time the Aris management had a problem with the two best players, Vangelis Alexandris and Haris Papageorgiou, who had left. It helped me a lot that there were some young guys. We participated in a tournament in Serbia, which helped me a lot towards building the team.

We had a real leader, Nonis Ananiadis and other great personalities. Stavros Holopoulos, Vassilis Paramanidis, Diamantis Skondras, Kostas Stylianou. We built a team that was something new for the Greek reality, I think.

I think I had the best relationship with Nikos Galis. He was a very important member of the team and a great team player, both on offense and defense. In the second year, when we won against all the teams, Nikos Galis, sulking, said something to me. I said, "What's the matter, man? What's your problem?"

Then I found out that they were waging a terrible war on me from the outside. One of the leaders in this war was Paris Kalimeridis. I have to tell you that years later, at an event in Mantoulidis School, he publicly apologized to me for everything he did against me. Few people had been subjected to such a war from the outside.

So what happened? They had found Nikos Galis and had put in words against me, they conveyed to him that I had said some things against him. This came from within the team, from the management, specifically -from what I had learned- from a doctor, Dimitris Rokkos, who had a special role in the team. I didn't know exactly what he had been told. And he got angry.

They didn't want the team to win the championship, because if we won it, the same management would have won in the elections and so Akis Michailidis and Yannis Ioannidis and would not come to the team etc. This came from inside the team, from inside the administration.

I didn't see this as something against me, but as something against the team. I believe that Aris, after Panagiotis Giannakis joined the team, should have won the European Championship.

Aris did not win the championship in the end. Aris finished in second place, behind Panathinaikos. This is how his stint in the team came to an end.

"After my contract ended, I had a very nice conversation with Anestis Petalidis, a real friend and a real cool guy from Thessaloniki. He told me that we would have to see if our cooperation would continue, which was not sensible amid this war, but I had already made up my mind and returned home.

I enjoyed great support from my players and the management throughout this time, I have no complaints about how they handled everything that was going on with this war against me. Even today we get together and catch up at Dimitris Nastos’ hotel.

We also had good relations with Yannis Ioannidis. In fact, when I was the coach of PAOK, I bought a house near the sea from a company in which he was a shareholder, together with Mr. Economidis from PAOK and Mr. Papavasileiou from Aris. I bought a house and we had a lot of good times together."

What happened with Panagiotis Fasoulas?

"I saw Panagiotis Fasoulas for the first time when I was the coach of Aris. I told Thodoris Rodopoulos at the time that it was impossible for a player with such attributes not to have a great career. I told him "it's okay if he can't help now, let him play".

So when I went to PAOK, he had become a great palyer. A really great player. On the other hand though, he didn't like training. We found a solution to this, to what we could do to make things work.

He had a lot of brains, but he was a special player. You had to know how to manage him."

After the EuroBasket in Rome, I don't think I would have ever left Yugoslavia if it wasn't for the war. During that time I was met by the people of PAOK, Nikos Vezirtzis and Takis Paneloudis. I agreed to come to PAOK.

I am proud of what we have achieved with the team. The PAOK team of that era deserved to win the European Championship, as I believe the same was true for Aris in the 80s.

I'll tell you something I've never said before in public: I believe that we played the best basketball in Europe with PAOK back then. You can't say that we were the greatest team, but we had a very balanced team.

We worked hard and the truth is that I had to make a decision, the mandatory three-week leave I gave Levingston at the beginning of the season. This decision has helped us.

I remember that after a heavy defeat against Peristeri, when we lost by 25 points, the next day I saw him in the gym lifting weights. I approached him and told him to inform the president that I have given him three weeks' leave to go home and think.

The team was at a breaking point and if he was ready to come back that would be fine, otherwise he should stay there. That's what I thought was right at the time, it was the last straw. The same night Nikos Vezirtzis came and found me with Takis Paneloudis.

Nikos Vezirtzis said to me then "Coach, please don't do this, I'm facing a personal and team disaster. Don't do that, just leave him on the bench." I replied that I did not do this to punish him, but to make us more of a team.

I'll tell you something just for laughs: when he came back and started playing, our caretaker, Babis, used to hide a Coke for him to drink. He said if he didn't burp, he couldn't play. Now that is some bullshit!

The lost semi-final against Benetton in 1993

I was very sad for Nikos Vezirtzis and the fans of the team, because we lost that semi-final to Benetton. We had a very balanced roster, but the injury of Christos Tsekos ruined our plans.

He had a very important role at the center position. After that injury, I had to put Kenneth Barlow and Nikos Boudouris, who was an important player for me, on Tony Kukoč.

The pairing of John Korfas and Bane Prelević was fantastic and Nikos Boudouris changed the pace of the game by playing very good defense. In order to properly mark Tony Kukoč, I had to take out Giorgos Kouklakis and maybe it was a mistake to have George Valavanidis on the bench, a strong kid, who never played.

I did it to maintain the chemistry and balance of the team. I don't know how others see it.

In the first half all went well, the ball went to Cliff Levingston, but Panagiotis Fasoulas was charged with three fouls.

We changed our game in the second half. John Korfas started passing to Bane Prelević all the time, but he had a poor shooting percentage that night.

We changed our game, stopped passing the ball to the big men and started shooting. That was our story."

After a two-year delay, Dušan Ivković finally took over Olympiacos. It was the summer of 1996, when that (first) phone call of Sokratis Kokkalis turned into a contract with the “Reds”. Incidentally, in the meantime, there was no other form of communication between the two men.

"The first season started very badly, we couldn't have done worse I think. Sokratis Kokkalis was the best president and the most deserving, for me. We used to discuss about various players’ issues.

We had a lot of injuries, illnesses, countless problems. We even lost against BAO. I continued to work hard nevertheless. I have always said that we must continue until we see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Both I and the team received a lot of war from the outside, I don't want to say names. But we are talking about war. It was written in the press that David Rivers is leaving in order to bring in Sasha Djordjevic. They unsettled the players with all that.

The switch was finally flipped during the season, on the way to winning the EuroLeague. And while most (if not all) generally focus on the break against Panathinaikos in the round of 8, Dušan Ivković focuses on an event that happened much earlier. In Madrid.

“We were playing a Christmas tournament in Madrid. I told everyone to come there with their wives, because I wanted to have a family atmosphere during the holidays.

We were at the hotel with the team, when the team manager, Takis Liveratos, took me aside and told me that Willie Anderson had arrived with his girlfriend. I say "listen man, I don’t want to see him here, there’s going to be a big fuss. Please do not permit them to enter the hotel, I don't want to see him before me."

He didn't come with the team to Madrid and he travelled on his own, probably with some cooperation of the management and I don't know what. Takis listened to me and the player left.

So after that Christmas tournament, we had a very crucial away game against CSKA Moscow. We only wanted a win to qualify for the playoffs with a home court disadvantage.

We entered the stadium and I heard the announcer of the stadium saying things about poisoning, poisoned water etc. I understood Russian and I was furious.

I approached the commissioner and told him that this guy was saying very bad things about my team. I wouldn't let anyone say anything against my team."

Olympiacos won in Moscow, eliminated Partizan and Panathinaikos with a home court disadvantage and reached the Final Four in Rome. And if there is one thing that is remembered from that time, it is the walk on the day of the final. Just when everyone expected that there would be a relaxed training session in the morning, Dušan Ivković decided something different altogether.

"I am of the opinion that when you have worked well on your tactics and have prepared the team as you want to, both in terms of game readiness and psychologically, sometimes you shouldn't keep repeating the same things. So we went to the sea and threw stones into the sea."

"It was a big mistake by the administration. If we all stayed, it would have been a different story. Dejan Bodiroga only wanted to come to Greece for Olympiacos. I remember that summer, we went out to dinner with Kostas Papadakis and Mark Fletcher, his representatives, and the player said he only wanted to play for Olympiacos.

I don't know why they never wrote that in Greek papers. Is this true? -ask Kostas Papadakis if you want. But we couldn't get him. With Dejan Bodiroga and David Rivers,we would have kept winning the EuroLeague for many years.”

After the last victory against AEK Athens and the triple crown, the team returned to the hotel in Kifissia. The president came and congratulated the players, visiting them in their rooms.

We arrived together at David Rivers' room. He then said "President, I'm the MVP in four competitions, I want to get paid very well now". He asks him "how much do you want?" And David Rivers replies “something like the money Predrag Danilović gets at Kinder Bologna”. This conversation took place in front of me.

It was more of a joke than a serious dialogue. It was done amid laughter and celebrations.

Now, listen. They finally agreed on an amount. David Rivers was given 24 hours to respond. He and his agent called me to tell me that all the (president’s) phones are off, they couldn't answer to the offer.

We kept talking, I meanwhile won the gold medal with the national team at the 1997 Eurobasket, and David Rivers called me back. It was almost midnight. He called me to say "coach, sorry, I'm signing a contract with Fortidudo right now".

Know something else: we got another player from America, Michael Hawkins, and Olympiacos played very good basketball. I remember games against Real Madrid and Maccabi Tel Aviv, he played well, but he wasn't like David Rivers.

At first David was a little difficult to work with, but that duo he made with Milan Tomić was incredible. David was a player ready to score at crucial times, he was very strong in transition.

That was a mistake on part of Olympiacos and probably me as well. I couldn't say to a man like Sokratis Kokkalis, "if you don't keep the team the same, I'm leaving". There was great appreciation between us. However, after my departure, Olympiacos finally brought back David Rivers and also got Dino Radja and Nikos Oikonomou".

The last chapter of the interview could only be about the 1987-1991 Yugoslavian Dream Team.

"In Yugoslavia we always had great talents. Dražen Petrović was probably the hardest worker of all from that team, I worked with him for five years. He worked hard.
At that time our aim was to see where we stood against the Soviet Union in Europe. When this batch came out with Dražen Petrović, Vlade Divac, Žarko Paspalj, Dino Radja, Stojko Vranković, Toni Kukoč and the rest of the guys, everyone said that they would never be like the golden boys, Dražen Dalipagić and Dragan Kićanović. They were all one and the same, pure talents, great personalities.

Let me tell you something: in Eurobasket 1989, when Greece beat the Soviet Union in the semi-final, not everyone was happy. You know why? A lot of people wanted us to play the Soviet Union and beat them, to prove that we were the better team. It had already been ten years since Yugoslavia had last won a gold medal in a Eurobasket. We managed to do it, the same happened at the World Cup in Argentina in 1990 and at the Eurobasket 1991, after which the team was disbanded.

I remember in the final in Rome, during the warm-up, all I was thinking about was the decision on the secession of Slovenia and how it should not happen. Jurij Zdovc was left out because of it. He had told me "Coach, what should I do? If I play for the national team, they will call me a traitor in my country". I told him, "leave that to me."

Before that incident, in Rome, there was something else that marked the future course of that team. It happened at the World Cup in Argentina, when the famous move was made by Vlade Divac, who grabbed the Croatian flag from a fan to hold the Yugoslavian flag a moment later.

Something that was the subject of a documentary filmed a few years ago, about the relationship between Dražen Petrović and Vlade Divac, which was never the same again after that incident. What does Dušan Ivković remember from that night?

"Look, this happened as a joke. First of all, it was Velimir Perasović with the flag, not Dražen. One of these flags was owned by Perasović, someone had given it to him.

At that time, the KDS had won the Croatian elections. A lot of Croatian fans came to Argentina with flags at that time. Velimir Perasović had one of these flags, because they were given to him. Vlade Divac took it from him and placed a Yugoslav flag on his shoulders.

He even laughed and said to him "when they see the flag in your house, they will f...ck you". It was a joke, between them. What they say, that Dražen's relations with Vlade broke down is not true. What the press wrote is not true.

We are talking about a team where no one ever said to each other "you are from Croatia, you are from Serbia, you are from Montenegro". They loved each other very much.

Žarko Paspalj and Toni Kukoč were playing in the same position, and so were Vlade Divac and Dino Radja. So every time, one of them had to stay out so that the other one could play. When one of them came out to let the other one in, they would hug and kiss.

We are talking about a great team. There was always love and friendship among them. The politicians wanted to give attention to this incident in Argentina, you know why.

Petrović wanted to show that he was in the NBA and come in late. He finished his season with the New Jersey Nets early, in April. I have always supported the players publicly and in the newspapers. Divac had gone all the way to the NBA Finals with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Dražen wanted both of them to join the team at the same day. I would call him and ask him when he was coming. He kept saying "next week, next week". We reached a point somewhere before the EuroBasket in Rome. I called him and said, "Dude, let me tell you something, what you're doing is not acceptable. Do you agree to do an interview and say that you have a special schedule with the New Jersey Nets and that in this situation you can't get to the level of play we expect in the National Team? You won't play in Rome."

He told me he agreed. When I announced it, it was a real chaos in the country. The president of the Federation said to me "Duda, do whatever you want, but I would never do that". That was the truth.

The journalists tried to say that Josip Gjergja put him in the national team in 1983 at the Eurobasket in France and that he was dismissed by Dušan Ivković in 1991. That was not true. We had a deal. In his heart, I think Dražen just wanted to come as an NBA player along with Divac".

Yugoslavia made the three-peat in major competitions, but failed to test themselves against the biggest opponent they could find, the Dream Team. At the Barcelona Olympics there was no longer the Yugoslavian team that everyone had admired in previous years.

"We were all waiting for the Barcelona Olympics to play against the USA. We had players with NBA experience, like Divac, Raja and Petrović.

We weren't like the other teams you saw in Barcelona at the time, taking pictures with the Dream Team players.

It was a great loss for the sport that the best team in Europe didn't play against the Dream Team at that time. It was a great deal that was reached between FIBA and the NBA to bring the NBAers to the Olympics. It helped the sport, but it was a shame we didn't face them."