The Balkan Basketball Boom

The Ringer NBA Show

The Ringer

Sports

4.2 • 9.4K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2023

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this special audio feature, Ringer senior staff writer Jordan Ritter Conn traveled to the Balkans to answer one simple question: How are so many of the world’s greatest basketball players—including two-time MVP Nikola Jokic and potential future MVP Luka Doncic—coming from such a small region? Interviews with current and former NBA players, as well as scouts and coaches in the region, peel back the layers of the rise and sustained success of the Balkan "basketball school.” Host: Jordan Ritter Conn Producers: Mallory Rubin, Justin Verrier, Bobby Wagner, and Vikram Patel Sound Design, Mixing, and Mastering: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's up everybody, it's Austin Rivers from the Minnesota Temple Wells.
0:03.3	It's a new year and I have a new podcast here at The Ringer, off guard, hosted by me and my guy,
0:08.1	Pasha Higigi.
0:09.1	Austin and I go way back and talk so much through already that we figured
0:12.6	those time to fire up the mics and let you in on all of these conversations.
0:16.4	Every week, Pasha and I will head on to biggest stories happening in the league
0:19.6	and get Austin's perspective of someone currently hoping in the NBA.
0:22.9	Tap into off guard, every Friday on the Ringer NBA Show Feed on Spotify
0:27.1	or wherever you get your podcast.
0:37.7	It's a Tuesday afternoon in September.
0:39.9	I'm in Belgrade, Serbia, walking through the neighborhood of Racha.
0:43.8	Everywhere I look, there are open air cafes, graffiti walls, and it's hot.
0:49.4	I'm sweaty and in a hurry.
0:51.5	I'm heading to a meeting with a man named Sergen Rodojevic.
0:57.1	I came to Serbia looking for a complicated answer to a very simple question.
1:01.7	And I was told that Sergen, the Zack Lo of Serbia, as one NBA assistant coach called him,
1:07.4	could help me find what I needed.
1:10.2	Yeah, Sergen, how's it going?
1:11.8	How are you?
1:12.6	Good, how are you?
1:13.6	I'm good reading something.
1:15.1	We're outside a coffee shop near Sergen's home.
	...

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