Mirza Delibaà ¡ià(9 January 1954 â 8 December 2001) was a Bosnian professional basketball player and coach. He is widely considered one of the greatest players in the history of European basketball.
Delibaà ¡iàwas named one of FIBA's 50 Greatest Players in 1991. He was enshrined into the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2008, he was named one of the 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors.
Mirza Delibaà ¡iàwas born on 9 January 1954 in Tuzla, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia to Izet Delibaà ¡iÃÂ, a native of Kakanj, and Zajkana (née MehiÃÂeviÃÂ) from Ljubuà ¡ki. Young Mirza took up tennis, excelling at it. By the age of fourteen, he switched to basketball.
Delibaà ¡iÃÂ, nicknamed KinÃÂe, led his club Bosna to the EuroLeague Championship in 1979. He played his first games aged 15 for KK Sloboda Dita, Tuzla's basketball club. Three years later, in 1971, he signed a contract with KK Bosna.
After leaving Bosna, Delibaà ¡iàwent to the Spanish Primera División, where he ended up being considered one of the best players ever to play for Real Madrid, along with the likes of Juan Corbalán, Wayne Brabender, Fernando MartÃÂn Espina, Fernando Romay, Draà ¾en PetroviÃÂ, and Arvydas Sabonis.
In his club career, he won numerous titles in European club competitions. In addition to having played together for their Yugoslav national team, Delibaà ¡iàand Draà ¾en DalipagiÃÂ, also played together at Real Madrid. Their performance in a 1983 European Champions Cup game against Cibona in Zagreb, is only one of the many highlights of their careers. In that game, Delibaà ¡iàscored 26 points and Dalipagià33. The game appropriately finished with a two-on-one fast-break, with Delibaà ¡iàmaking a behind-the-back fake pass to DalipagiÃÂ, and passing by a defender for a two-handed dunk at the buzzer. Cibona's fans put aside their team's loss in the game, and showed their appreciation for their performances, with a standing ovation at the end of the game.
In early summer 1983, twenty-nine-year-old Delibaà ¡iàleft Real Madrid and signed with the Italian League club JuveCaserta coached by his former Bosna mentor Bogdan TanjeviÃÂ.
In August 1983, the team went for preseason training and conditioning to the town of Bormio in the Italian Alps. Following the gruelling altitude training, after coming back south to Caserta, Delibaà ¡iàsuffered a near-fatal brain hemorrhage that would turn out to be career-ending. With Delibaà ¡iàin critical condition, a private plane was immediately organized to airlift him to the Military Medical Academy (VMA) in Belgrade where he was hospitalized for months. He survived and recovered, but not enough to return to playing professional basketball thus being forced into retirement effective immediately at only the age of twenty nine.
En route to a place among the greatest European players, Delibaà ¡iàwon every major FIBA tournament with the senior Yugoslavia national team, including: the gold medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics, EuroBasket gold two times (1975 and 1977), and the FIBA World Cup gold at the 1978 FIBA World Championship.
Delibaà ¡iàbriefly managed Bosna on a few occasions following his retirement during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Delibaà ¡iàlived in Sarajevo throughout the 1992âÂÂ1996 siege of the city during the Bosnian War. Simultaneously, he coached the newly established Bosnian national basketball team at EuroBasket 1993 in Germany, where they finished in 8th place.
In the late 1970s, Delibaà ¡iàmarried his girlfriend Branka. The couple had a son Dario born in late December 1979, before divorcing shortly thereafter in 1980 upon Delibaà ¡iÃÂ's move abroad to play with Real Madrid.
By 1984, Delibaà ¡iàbegan dating professional basketball player Slavica à  uka, playing with à ½KK Bosna. In summer 1986, with à  uka six months pregnant, the couple married in a civic ceremony in Trebinje with former professional basketball player Zdravko ÃÂeÃÂur as the groom's best man. Several months later, in October, the couple had a son named Danko.
Delibaà ¡iÃÂ's son with Branka, Dario Delibaà ¡iÃÂ, would follow in his father's footsteps by becoming a professional basketball player, spending time with KK Crvena zvezda, KK Zadar, and KK Bosna. In 2015, Dario, by then residing in Sarajevo and pursuing hospitality entrepreneurship via running a restaurant in the city, was tried in absentia in Udine on a drug trafficking charge, allegedly as part of a Balkans-based organized crime group whose members were on trial simultaneously; Dario received a 6-year prison sentence, which he never served due to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Italy not having an extradition treaty. In May 2019, Dario was apprehended by the Sarajevo Canton police on suspicion of being an accomplice in the 20 April 2019 kidnapping of Tamer Kilerdà ¾i, a Sarajevo-based nargila bar owner; Dario ended up spending 2 months in prison detention before being released.
Due to his heavy drinking and smoking, Delibaà ¡iàfinal years were marked by persistent health problems that led to his death in 2001 in Sarajevo, aged 47. At a funeral attended by thousands, he was interred next to his close friendâÂÂsinger Davorin Popoviàwho had died earlier that yearâÂÂat Bare Cemetery's Alley of Greats.
Following Delibaà ¡iÃÂ's death, Skenderija Hall was renamed to the Mirza Delibaà ¡iàHall in his honor. The Mirza Delibaà ¡iàMemorial, an international basketball tournament between clubs, has been held annually since 2005 in Sarajevo.
In December 2018, the Basketball Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina changed the name of the national cup championship to the Mirza Delibaà ¡iàCup.