By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
On Friday, Serbian national team coach Dusan Ivkovic gave a press conference in which he answered all his critics during the Eurobasket 2013 qualifying round. Serbia finally qualified, however the team had mixed results and stunning defeats by Montenegro at Belgrade, by Estonia and by Israel.
“You always criticize me, but in the end I prevail”, said Ivkovic to the media, even though he acknowledge there were many problems for his team in the court and specially CSKA‘s star Milos Teodosic should grow more mature. Ivkovic also said that he didn’t include power forward Dragan Labovic (photo) in the team, because he was out of shape as he was celebrating the birth of his child.
Labovic reaction was an angry letter to the newspaper “Sportski Zurnal”: “Sir Ivkovic, if you thought that I will not respond to your comment about the long celebrated birth of my child, you are sorely mistaken. I will answer you curtly, as my character dictates! I think it’s natural to celebrate any new birth. I didn’t celebrate it before the preparation but during the preparation, but I forgive you because you’re an old man. My celebration isn’t a real problem, because it only happened once. Ask about your players who celebrates almost every day while preparing for “big results”. I would go back a little on the events of the 2008, when it all started. I was the best scorer of the Adriatic League and the best player of each possible competition I took part in, but at the time I had no place in your team consisting of players from one management agency. In 2008, you raised the value of many who didn’t deserve it, and I went down. Almost 90% of them took millions through this action. Thank God I did it too, but without that action, and without that management agency and without you urging and calling throughout Europe because these players need to play! My opinion is that you are an unsuccessful coach. I think in general you’re not a coach, but a basketball philosopher. To win two Euroleague titles, you spent 970 million euros.”
Labovic implies that many members of Serbian national team are notoriously known in the night life of Belgrade, or the European city where their club team resides. As for the agency, he refers to Beobasket of Misko Raznatovic, even though the biggest stars of the national team, Milos Teodosic and former NBAer Nenad Krstic were never represented by this firm.
Labovic, who was a teammate of Teodosic in the junior national teams of Serbia and was also considered a big talent, seems to be bitter about his exclusion from the national team and ends his letter like this: “I do not play for Real Madrid, nor for Barcelona, but during the last three years I spent more minutes on the court than 80 percent of your team. In your team, while you’re at the helm, nothing will change – the ball will always be in Teodosic’s hand and he will pass it to Krstic and so on during the whole game. Others players are like mascots on the court, or play the same role as mascots next to the court, not only in your team, but also in major European clubs! I suggest you continue walking the district of Kalemegdan in Belgrade, read “Politika” newspaper, keep the pigeons that you breed… I will continue to be obese and to play 25-30 minutes per game and earn money without your marketing. Thanks for reading and see you, I’m in a hurry my hookah is about to go out”.