Hello basketball fans!

The Euroleague regular season is coming to its end, and it is going to be very interesting. Last time I wrote, my team KK Zagreb was 0-4, everybody was talking about how terrible our point-differential was, and some were predicting a catastrophic season for our team. But, things have turned around quite a bit and in the four weeks since my last blog, my team had two big victories against Brose Baskets and Zalgiris. We also played tough in a couple of away games against Panathinaikos and CSKA. So, after those bad first four games, the last four were totally different. All of a sudden, with few other results going our way, we found ourselves in the race for a place in the Top 16.

Everybody in and around a club has to be happy with how we performed the last four weeks. When we analyze all that happened at the beginning of the toughest season this club ever had, I'm glad I can say it was not realistic that we played that bad. I believe it was just a matter of our inexperience on how to approach Euroleague games, combined with certain circumstances that came together in the completely wrong way. But, with couple of worthy victories we showed character and strength to get out of that situation. And we proved, to ourselves but also to our critics, that we belong in the Euroleague. No one expected us to still be competing for the next round. People... more

Hi everybody, it is Damir Mulaomerovic again. As I wrote last time in this blog, this is my last professional season. Four Euroleague weeks have passed and, the truth is, I did not really imagine that it would be going this way. Neither me nor my teammates or anyone in KK Zagreb imagined that we would start our first Euroleague season with such heavy defeats. But it happened. I guess we just were not ready for what was awaiting us. No one expected us to beat Panathinaikos or CSKA Moscow, but we should have been tougher opponents for them. It turned out we were patching things up on our roster in these past weeks, we were looking for team chemistry, while players individually were trying to find their form. We played only one good game so far, some 25 quality minutes in Malaga. Unfortunately, that is our only performance that satisfies the quality level expected in the Euroleague.

The club's Euroleague story should have been a pure satisfaction for everybody involved, but so far it has turned out to be frustrating. It is frustrating to lose by 30 or 40 points. I will never get used to that and I will never accept that, regardless who is on the other side of the floor. I believe, though, we will be a more dangerous opponent the rest of the way. This upcoming game against Zalgiris on Wednesday will tell us a lot about ourselves. We had a couple of victories in the Adriatic league and I hope it can give us a lift in the Euroleague, as well. Teams in our Group C certainly do have better rosters than we do, but I hope at least on our home floor we will show a level of play that can make us competitive with them. So, I'm staying optimistic, believing that with... more

Hello, everyone. It is a pleasure to be writing this blog on my return to the Turkish Airlines Euroleague. It is a fantastic feeling coming back to the best competition in Europe, especially because it is my last year of active playing.

I wanted the story to end like it started, with the Euroleague. As far as I'm concerned, it's a privilege that I am given a chance to do just that. At my age, it does not matter if I will play 2 minutes, 5 minutes or 30 minutes, it is only important to be a part of the elite club competition and to say farewell to playing basketball at its highest level. That was privately my wish at the end of last season, it is how I was thinking when my teammates and I won the Croatian League title last year. Actually, I did consider retiring but decided to stick around for another year and to go on this trip one more time. I had everything during my career, big ups and downs, crying and celebrating, and this is my chance to sum it all up.

It is impossible not to remember my first Euroleague games, back in fall of 1994. As a 20-year-old in Cibona, I first played a qualifying round against Banik of Slovakia, and then my first official Euroleague game against Olympiacos. That was a fantastic feeling! We had a young team; my generation of teammates carried the team; and it is not easy to believe these days that such young players would have such important roles at such a high level of competition. But that also tells you how game has evolved over the years and how Euroleague improved a lot. Nevertheless, I feel nostalgic to remember those days. It was so hard for fans in Zagreb to get a ticket to watch us play. For some games, Drazen... more