Žarko Paspalj
Žarko Paspalj (Serbian Cyrillic: Жарко Паспаљ; born March 27, 1966) is a retired Serbian professional basketball player working as a sports administrator. The Euroleague Final Four MVP in 1994, his sixteen and a half seasons career was mostly spent in Yugoslavia and Greece, along with several short stints in the NBA, France, and Italy. Since 2009, he has been vice-president of the Serbian Olympic Committee.
For years, Paspalj was an automatic choice for the Yugoslav national team, representing his country in one FIBA World Championship, two Olympics, and four European championships. He earned an All-EuroBasket Team selection in 1989.
Paspalj's Serbian forester father Jovan moved from a small village on the slopes of Kozara in Bosanska Krajina to Pljevlja on business as he dealt in lumber trade. Once there he married a local woman, Mileva, and remained. Their first child, son Darko, was born in 1961, five years before Žarko was born in 1966.
During mid 1970s, when young Žarko was ten years old, his father's job requirements moved the family to Titograd. Žarko took up basketball and soon established himself in the youth system of KK Budućnost.
Paspalj began his career in 1982. At 16 he moved up to Budućnost's first team where he was part of a talented generation alongside Zdravko Radulović and Luka Pavićević. At the time, Budućnost was a small, unambitious side that had played its first ever top-tier season two years earlier in 1980-81 and essentially served as talent feeder for bigger Yugoslav League clubs like Partizan, Cibona, Jugoplastika, Crvena Zvezda and Bosna.
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