By Cesare Milanti / info@eurohoops.net
Sometimes, you may find yourself surrounded by the same views, scents, or colors. It doesn’t really matter where you are. The natural paintings of the Adriatic Sea in Split, for example, can be easily mistaken for the shades of blue brought by Lake Ohrid.
That young boy must have walked the side lake before witnessing one of the most unforgettable nights of his basketball career. Blue turns red and yellow everywhere in the stands, and Ohrid suddenly turns from the pleasantest of places to the most unwelcome of nightmares.
“I wasn’t surprised when coach [Neven Spahija] called me, because no matter what I thought I deserved it”, Roko Ukic explains to Eurohoops. The confidence is there from the day, that national team debut that could have meant everything: from a fleeting appearance to becoming a Croatian icon, the range of possibilities was infinite.
He wasn’t unknown, that’s for sure. By the time that game came, he already had his first professional points scored at the age of 16 with the club of his life, being born, raised, and well-treated in Split. A few months before, he led the U18 Croatian national team to gold at the European Championship.
Being called up with older legends like Damir Mulaomerovic, Zoran Planicic, and Nikola Vujcic looked like a natural consequence, at least to Neven Spahija’s eyes. “We had to rebuild the national team. There was a lot of criticism and outside noise for that drastic change”, the current Reyer Venice’s head coach recalls to Eurohoops.
After not reaching any steps of the International podiums for almost a decade, Croatia had to start relying on younger and newer generations. And that young playmaker fit right into the system. He was made for greater reasons, a veteran mind into a prospect’s body.
“I was considered one of the best players of my generation, expectations were always high. Sometimes even too high. As a kid you don’t think too much about it, you play as best as you can, trying to live with it”, he says. “It wasn’t easy”, he insists. But he made it through.
He did it fast, forging ahead. At 17, before making it to the Best Five of the U19 World Cup, losing in the semifinals, he was appointed Split’s captain. A childhood dream for every basketball kid, but – once again – he was made for it. “It wasn’t a big shock to anybody for me to be captain of the team. I was proud, but for me, it was a natural role”, he indeed comments.
Leading a very young roster with an average age of 21 years old, Roko Ukic knew he had to naturally skip steps. “I didn’t really think much about it, I took it and I was always a point guard in most of the teams. That was the role made for me, I was expected to be a leader”, he says.
It was the beginning of a 23-year-long career, which has now reached an emotional end, completing the circle of his basketball life on every angle of Earth’s courts.
20 years since that winning shot
Announcing his retirement from the game of basketball where everything started more than two decades before, his decision to step back from the sport also came almost exactly 20 years after he wrote one of the latest successful chapters of a once memorable basketball powerhouse.
Being only one of two teams – alongside Latvian winning organization Rigas ASK – capable of coming out on top in three consecutive EuroLeague campaigns (1989, 1990, 1991), Jugoplastika wrote basketball history with the lights of Dino Radja, Toni Kukoc, Zan Tabak, Velimir Perasovic and Zoran Savic.
KK Split was born from historic black-and-yellow ashes, and Roko Ukic gave it an ultimate reason to celebrate in February 2004. Coming down to the last shot in Zadar’s Jazine Basketball Hall against home-court opponents, Roko Ukic was given the ball with 15.2 seconds left on the clock.
He brought the ball down the court using the right hand only, waiting for the right moment to cross somebody over. Keeping the focus center-court, he dribbled a couple of times more, driving to the basket with the left. Once in traffic, he needed to come up with something clever.
Most players, especially at that age and without such a huge experience on their shoulders, would have gone up with the left, eventually earning a trip to the line at the very last seconds of the game. Instead, Roko Ukic decided to go Jordan in the 1991 NBA Finals, switching lately.
Two points and the Croatian Cup is back to Split seven years in the making. “I’m still very proud of that moment, not just of the basket, but of the whole tournament. We were really young, and I was the leader of that team. It brought us joy, and excitement, putting us on the map. We deserved to be seen. But it also brought us weight, because big things were expected from us from that moment”, he said.
That translated immediately into a giant haul. “The club’s goal was to cash out the potential we had as kids, getting some money from buyouts and leaving us too early. It didn’t help us to develop our careers, but at the same time, it was putting us on a basketball map, making people notice that we were there, young and talented. And that we could play”, the now-retired point guard recalled.
Having surpassed 20 years of age, some months after that winning buzzer-beater in Zadar, he was clearly one of the most interesting European prospects in the Continent, averaging 18.5 points, 2.8 rebounds, and 4.3 assists per game, getting huge attention from the NBA.
At the same time, the fuss and expectations were there, and “it wasn’t easy”. After winning the U18 World Cup in Germany, he led the Croatian national team to the semifinals of the U19 World Cup in Greece, losing to the hosts dragged by giants Ian Vougioukas and Sofoklis Schortsanitis.
Roko Ukic was once again in that best starting five of the tournament, climbing up the ladders. That shot that would have ultimately cemented Split’s last-ever huge victory and an amazing 2004-05 season came up next, despite what was running around. “If you get distracted, it won’t be good for you. It will take you out of focus on the goal”, he now thinks back to what he was experiencing growing up.
“You need to try putting your attention in the right direction, which is hard for young kids. If you have decent guidance from parents, coaches, and older teammates, it can be easier; I was just like that. Sometimes it was easier, sometimes it was harder. It’s growing pains”, he reflects.
It’s what he has been experiencing so far with his 13-year-old, named like another huge early-blossomed basketball talent. “[Luka] looks like he’s 11. It’s an everyday sign that every noise around him has to be stopped and pushed down. There’s a lot of time ahead of him”, he calmly affirms.
As young people and hoopers get distracted so easily with all surrounding them, it’s important to keep the eye-lens sharp. “Not just time-wise but also focus-wise and thinking-wise, everything else should be lowered. That’s what I’m trying to do with my kid, and with every kid who I might speak to, coach, or have any interaction with”, he states by passing the torch.
“That’s my task, as a parent and as a former player who went through all levels possible in basketball, to put that on his mind, being focused on important things. Having good practice, doing his best in that particular game, not looking seven steps ahead, maybe half step, one day, maximum a week ahead. Don’t look more time ahead”, Roko Ukic also added.
“Putting myself through that again”
Roko Ukic went through a lot, especially when it came to the national team. Back in April 2020, his thoughts found some pages where they could be shaped into words on FIBA’s official website. He was trying to answer a simple but wide-explored question: “Why are you putting yourself through this again?”.
As he brought out in that down-to-earth letter, it was a dark period for its national team, having failed to qualify for the 2019 FIBA World Cup. He naturally didn’t know that back then, but the failure would have been doubled some months later, giving form to another fiasco without making it to the 2023 FIBA World Cup.
However, the talent was there. Himself, of course, Dario Saric, Bojan Bogdanovic. And Mario Hezonja, who now has an important role with Real Madrid in the EuroLeague but at the time still in the NBA. “He is one of our legendary players. I always called him a basketball library, he knows almost everything about basketball”, the Croatian forward affirms to Eurohoops when talking about Roko Ukic.
The praise doesn’t stop there from the former Panathinaikos player. “He showed a lot for us on the court, taking each of us to the side, and speaking a lot with us to be successful with the national team. He helped me tremendously to feel comfortable in the national team and did the same to many young players, showing the way and always being close to us, saying the right things”, Mario Hezonja adds.
Playing as a “father figure” while being the Croatian national team’s captain, he led by example. But most of the younger ones in that locker room committed a common mistake. “As a young player you want to be the best and you don’t want to listen to constructive things that such a veteran is telling you, which are going to be beneficial in the long term rather than in the short term”, he also said.
Had time to write something.. https://t.co/EUHf5LyRnN
— Roko Leni Ukic (@RokoLeni10) April 2, 2020
Being selected with the 42nd pick in the 2005 NBA Draft by the Toronto Raptors, he stayed three more years in Europe before making the overseas jump. During that span, he spent time with Baskonia, Barcelona, and Roma. Step by step, making his presence felt in the EuroLeague, more and more.
In his Spanish days – just like would have happened later with a legendary teammate like Dimitris Diamantidis in Panathinaikos -, he was surrounded in the backcourt by huge players like Pablo Prigioni and Juan Carlos Navarro. Both were already established and experienced.
But just like Mario Hezonja said about Roko Ukic, he didn’t vastly apprehend, at least mentally. “Sometimes you don’t understand how important it is to be surrounded by such great players when you’re young. You’re a competitor, you wanna play, you wanna take their minutes. After that time passes, you appreciate that more, and you find out how much that means for your career later when you hit your prime”, he admits.
Playing with great guards “helped a lot”, but he’s the same Roko Ukic that underlines the early struggles when it came to “understanding the game of basketball”, as he “didn’t have the value of different styles, especially in the playmaking position”. Considering how wide his point guard arsenal became year after year, spending time with those names was clearly useful.
“I didn’t really get why Pablo Prigioni was that good if he was averaging 7.0 points per game, because I was a kid and I didn’t get all the advantages of true point guards or their influence on the court, such as him or [José] Calderon. I had a lot of great players around me, like Jaka Lakovic in Barcelona”, he says.
In the Catalan team, as already said, the company also included a guy named Juan Carlos. “I was admiring Navarro’s floating game and La Bomba for which he’s still famous all around the world. He was the first guy to put that move in a report: every young guard has to have it since the beginning. I was one of the first guys to try to copy that shot. I’m proud I made a lot of baskets with that move in my Panathinaikos and Fenerbahce days. The only reason I ever saw the timing of the shots, is situations from the court you can take: I learned all from Juan Carlos”, he added. Simple as that.
Going through dreams and playing with “heroes”
Back to an already-touched topic when reviewing Roko Ukic’s career, he surely made a retire-surviving impact with the Croatian national team. Despite not tasting bronze, silver, or gold when moving up to the senior side, he still is the all-time leader in presence with Croatia, and he played in both the 2008 and 2016 Olympic Games. He’s also the second-leading scorer in his country’s history.
Croatia couldn’t succeed several times, coming up short at EuroBasket 2005 and 2009, or in Rio de Janeiro. Losses that hurt, with games on the line. Without even considering the fallout in EuroBasket 2017, losing by 23 points against Russia in the Round of 16.
However, he can’t be upset. “My generation never wanted to give up. Whenever we didn’t come home with the medal, it didn’t matter if we were 4th or 7th, we didn’t match up with the expectations. We all had successful careers individually, whether we were at the highest level in the EuroLeague or the NBA, but at home, we were never really considered as the greatest players”, he reflected on his time.
At the end of the day, the burden was the heaviest. “We weren’t as good as Drazen [Petrovic], Toni [Kukoc], or Dino [Radja]. That didn’t affect us in the way of giving up: we wanted to try doing it again, battle for us and for the national team jersey as long as we could. I’m most proud of those moments”, he proudly stated. “I can’t be impelled, because we gave it all. For real”, he comments.
While his chapter with the national team can be described with five significant letters, as in “pride”, the seventeen different playing adventures he lived through a 23-year career need several different terms. Starting from “beginnings” in Split.
Baskonia and Barcelona came up next, and he put those two Spanish gifts in the same bonbonniere. “That was something that put me on the ground, a revelation that I wasn’t as good as I thought. I needed to work more to be the best point guard in Europe, while in Split I thought I would have been it at 20 years of age. It was the realization of what the game can offer to you”, he said while smiling at it.
After being blinded on the road to Damascus, he headed to the Holy City to play basketball alongside another Balkan icon like Gregor Fucka, with his countryman Jasmin Repesa on the bench. “The season in Rome was an important confirmation of my level: I knew I could be the starting point guard in a EuroLeague team”, he said about the season in the capital, runner-up in the Italian league, and Top of 16 bound in the EuroLeague, where he put up 12.7 points per game.
His draft rights still belonged to the Toronto Raptors and in mid-July 2008 the call for a three-year deal arrived. “That was a dream coming true, something I lived for all my life”, he emotionally recalls. After backing up José Calderon in Canada, however, he was moved to the Milwaukee Bucks, where he stayed only for a few months before deciding to leave, not wanting to stay as the third option in the playmaking position. Returning to Europe was a must.
Bogdan Tanjevic wanted him in Istanbul, and he immediately delivered. In his first – and only – game with Fenerbahce in the 2009-10 season, he had a losing effort of 20 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists in the losing effort to Zalgiris Kaunas. In domestic action, he was one of the reasons why the yellow-and-blue powerhouse ended on top both in the Turkish Championship and Cup.
When the summer arrived, a familiar face joined Fenerbahce. “He was much more mature [than in 2002], my right hand over there”, Neven Spahija remembered to Eurohoops. “His understanding of basketball is very high, especially in the recruiting process. I’ve been discussing with him for many years because he knows the players, he’s deep inside the sport”, he praised the playmaker.
Being the reason why he made his debut with the national team in Ohrid against North Macedonia, Neven Spahija found Roko Ukic as the most pleasant of surprises in Turkey, winning once again both domestic titles. “Communicating permanently with players definitely makes you improve as a coach. He did a great job playing for me, it was a very successful time for both of us in Croatia and Fenerbahce”, he said.
Despite bitter moments together like in the 2005 FIBA EuroBasket Quarter-Finals against Spain, falling down in the OT under Juan Carlos Navarro’s 36 points, “otherwise we would have won the tournament” as he remembers, he’s proud to have coached him. “Every coach would be happy to have people and players around like Roko [Ukic]. It’s not easy to find such a personality and know-how”, he concluded.
Panathinaikos was next in line, and sharing the court with another icon came as a consequence. “I’d put him in my all-time starting five”, he said about Dimitris Diamantidis. “But I didn’t look at him as somebody I needed to learn from, even though you can always learn as long as you’re alive. It’s different when you’re in your prime at 28, the leader of the starting five, and some things are expected from you to deliver. You don’t look at any of your teammates as your heroes”, he distinguished.
After all, he came to Athens for a reason. “I joined Panathinaikos as a reinforcement to reach the Final Four. I didn’t come as a young player who needed to learn the game. That’s how we play and that’s who we think of each other, how we respected each other and won the other four trophies with Panathinaikos. Olympiacos won two EuroLeagues in that time. Back home in Greece, we beat them for four trophies, and we couldn’t do it without chemistry and cooperation”, he proudly stated.
“That was my ultimate prime, probably the years in which I played my best basketball”, Roko Ukic said. “Dimitris [Diamantidis] is one of the main reasons for that because as a basketball mind, he really knew how to use me on the court, letting me be me in trying to help the team in the best way in order for us to be all successful”, he underlined praising one of the best players ever in the EuroLeague.
You have to hit rock bottom to get back up
Reaching 30 years of age and following Achilles tendon strains in both feet that conditioned his last season in OAKA, he returned to his country’s capital, joining Cedevita. But it wasn’t the best of comebacks. Sunset Avenue began from there, and the sky turned red and white.
“I injured my Achilles and I was a shell of myself, I was half-speed, that was the season where I lost my level. People considered my biggest strength the power and speed of my legs, and I didn’t have my legs anymore. People didn’t consider me a good EuroLeague player anymore, and that injury really hurt me“, he went back to those depressing months.
The 2015-16 season saw him come back to Italy, moving between club rivals Varese and Cantù. But questions started to appear written in bold on the wall. “What am I gonna do? Am I gonna play again? What level am I? Am I a basketball player? What am I gonna do anymore in my career? Uncertainty and doubts. I was really thinking about stopping playing basketball. I couldn’t see myself playing anymore in the EuroLeague, aware of not being a EuroLeague player anymore”, he admits.
After AEK and another run in Cedevita, he moved for the first time to France, with Boulogne-Levallois Metropolitans 92. “When I went to Paris, I was fully convinced about my career being resurrected. It gave me three extra years of basketball that I didn’t think I had in myself. It was more a mental push than a physical, and it gave me back the joy of playing basketball once again”, Roko Ukic also said.
Another year in the LNB with the Antibes Sharks came, but it “had nothing to do with basketball”, surrounded by familiar blue shades in the Azure Coast. He “thought of finishing it there”, but then Covid-19 hit, the club got relegated, and one old giant woke up from a long-time sleep. One little stop in Cedevita, this time in Ljubljana after the alliance with Olimpija, and then it was time for home.
Closing the basketball chapter at home
Looking at Roko Ukic’s bio on Twitter, another big passion of the Croatian point guard comes out: “The best basketball player among drummers and the best drummer among basketball players”. Developing a loving relationship with music from his dad, he created with some friends his band SterotRip – with whom he’s currently working on a second studio album -, and he has the perfect title to describe a song based on his career. “Can’t Stop”, taking the assist from Red Hot Chili Peppers, his favorite band.
“I couldn’t stop playing basketball. Something in myself pushed me to go forward and forward. I’m a hyperactive person who always has something in his mind, I never stay still”, he says. But eventually, sooner or later, basketball players have to step back. Not anymore for shooting from deep. Roko Ukic knew where he wanted to do it.
At home in Split, obviously, dreaming of bringing back the glory days of Jugoplastika. “People have to realize that, despite an unbelievably historic past, the club has been out of the European basketball map for more than 30 years now. Trying to re-establish that stuff again, skipping fast-forward, was the reason why I wanted to finish my basketball career there. To get a full circle, help the team become a decent ABA participant. We succeeded in that”, the now 39-year-old point guard affirms.
He “always wanted” to retire in Split, and when the yellow-and-black team came back to the ABA League, he ultimately made the decision to pack luggage to return home, viewing the sea from his window. Averaging 14.9 points in his first season back with Split in 2020-21, it was clear he still had some gas left in the tank. He eventually stayed there until the end of the 2022-23 season. “I’m pretty satisfied with how I handled all that”, he now says with clear and complete satisfaction.
News from Croatia. Roko Ukic has a band, they released their first music video today. Right-handed as a basketball player, left-handed as a drummer…https://t.co/F58i4iF0B2
— Igor Curkovic (@IgorCurkovic) June 21, 2022
As his basketball sunset was firing up on the horizon, he realized it was time to stop. “It came naturally, nothing stopped me by force”, he said. After once again wearing the team’s leader’s jersey at 37 years of age in that first season back in Split, he thought of giving himself one more chance and giving one more chance to the game of basketball.
The following season his level decreased, and last year’s “end” turned from fictional to reality pretty soon. “I couldn’t do it anymore. I wasn’t able to get in the paint and I was just shooting threes which was never my main strength. I could see what was happening on the floor, but I couldn’t react the way I wanted”, he revealed. Passion was really put in first position since he was playing completely free.
In the ultimate chapter of his long basketball career, Roko Ukic didn’t earn a single euro. “It wasn’t about money. When my kid is growing up, I may need to spend more time with him on the court. It didn’t make any sense. I knew I was going to stop at the beginning of the season, but I didn’t want to announce it right away. I just waited a little bit to see how everyday life was going to be. And it’s just fine. I’m perfectly cool now to end this chapter”, he then clarified.
Today, the once-hyped prospect of the early 2000s is broadcasting ABA League games regularly both in Split and Zadar, he has started approaching the coaching world by taking lessons with U15 and U14 teams, being “interested in all aspects of the game”. He’s waiting for the right field to specialize himself after stopping an (hyper)active career on the court. While sitting behind his drums.
One question remains to be answered: is Roko Ukic still a competitor? “Since I stopped, I’m not saying I avoid competition, but I don’t look for it. It’s a weird feeling. Playing every day I was a little bit too much on that competitive side, being on the sports edge. When I started losing, I didn’t feel well. I don’t wanna put myself into that situation, because I know when I play basketball I can control things and be the best as I can. If somebody’s better than me, I can control it”, he first tried to analyze.
“But doing anything else in my life, I don’t wanna play any kind of competitive sport because I feel I need to do three practices to be the best version of myself. Which is ridiculous, but that’s how my mind is functioning. Imposter syndrome. If I’m broadcasting the game, I know I’m gonna be the best of myself, preparing the whole day with stats, and facts, calling three-four people to be 100% prepared. That’s my competition. Preparing practice for kids, I wanna do every single exercise the best I can”, he added.
“I’d say I have competition more with myself lately than with other people. I feel okay with it. But tomorrow, if I coach or whatever, I gonna probably compete more. I don’t see myself competing in the same way anytime again on the same level as a basketball player. That’s something special, that you can’t really duplicate on any other aspect of my life”, Roko Ukic finally said, dissecting the lack of competition that usually comes to a basketball player once retirement calls.
“Maybe I gonna change my opinion”, he concluded. Or maybe not. Maybe he will always remain the Croatian kid leaving home to Spain, Canada, USA, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and every kind of court, wherever handling and sharing the ball was needed from him. One thing changed, or maybe has always been the same: the shades of blue from his window in Split are there to be seen. Even though he isn’t putting himself through that. Again.
PHOTO CREDIT: 2017 FIBA EuroBasket