Jokic Named ABA League Icon With 94.3% of Vote

Tivoli Hall in Ljubljana had room for nostalgia as well as protocol last night. It was there, a quarter century ago, that the first game in ABA League history was played, and there that the first champion was crowned, so the organizers picked the same venue for the anniversary gala, 25 years of a competition that has sent a whole generation of basketball players from the region out into the world.

The biggest name of the night wasn’t physically in Ljubljana. Nikola Jokic sent his thanks in a video message, recorded straight from Denver, saying the honor meant a great deal to him because he grew up with the ABA League, played in it himself and had followed it since he was a child. He received the title of ABA League Icon, the evening’s top individual award, and it wasn’t much of a surprise.

In the vote for the 25 best players in the regional competition’s history, Jokic collected 94.3 percent, comfortably the highest of anyone on the list. Dejan Milojevic finished second with 92.3 percent, Bogdan Bogdanovic third with 80.4, Nikola Pekovic fourth with 78.9 and Dario Saric fifth with 72.7 percent. The votes weren’t weighted equally: coaches of the year carried 70 percent of the weight, regular season MVPs 20 percent, and media and fans five percent each.

Jokic entered the ABA League through Mega, played two seasons there, won MVP and Best Young Player awards, then moved to the NBA in 2015 and within a decade became one of the best basketball players on the planet. It’s a story the region likes to tell as proof that the league still has something worth exporting to the world.

Alongside Jokic, Milojevic, Bogdanovic and Pekovic, the list of the 25 best also included Milos Teodosic, Dusan Kecman, Nikola Kalinic, Igor Rakocevic, Nemanja Gordic, Vasilije Micic and Nemanja Bjelica from the Serbian side, joined by Goran Dragic, Nikola Vucevic, Jan Vesely, Jaka Lakovic, Bojan Bogdanovic, Bo McCalebb, Dino Radja, Luka Bozic, Krunoslav Simon, Marko Popovic, Ante Tomic, Charles Jenkins and Facundo Campazzo.

Beyond the top five and the full list of 25, the ABA League also handed out lifetime achievement awards, to Branko Lazic and Nemanja Gordic. Gordic is the competition’s all time leading scorer with 3,404 points and holds the assist record with 1,224, while Lazic is the league’s most decorated player, with seven championship rings and a record 426 games played.

The most successful coaches, by the same five title threshold, are Dejan Radonjic and the late Dusko Vujosevic. Radonjic reached all five titles with Crvena zvezda (Red Star Belgrade) and accepted his award in person, while Vujosevic’s, won with Partizan, was collected on the late coach’s behalf by his son Luka. Partizan also picked up the award for most successful club in league history, with eight championship titles, more than any other club in the region.

There was room for individual moments too. Dusan Kecman won the award for the best play in ABA League history for his three pointer in the 2010 final against Cibona in Zagreb, sunk 0.6 seconds before the buzzer and still, sixteen years later, one of the most recognizable images in regional basketball. Luka Bozic was named Mr. Triple Double, the only player in league history with two such performances, and Dejan Milojevic, whose award was also accepted by his son since it was given posthumously, was named Mr. MVP for his three regular season MVP awards, in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

The ABA League is marking its anniversary in the same week as its regular administrative business. Ostoja Mijailovic said a few days ago that Monaco, if it wants a place in the elite tier, will first have to go through the second tier competition, and the league assembly where that question could be decided is set for Saturday. The celebration at Tivoli is over. The bureaucracy follows right behind it.