EuroBasket 2025 Series: Why You Should Be Watching Basketball in August and September
Part I.: Meet Luka Dončić’s other team
August 2 marked the last key date of NBA free agency for Luka Dončić, the Lakers, and much of the league. That was the day Dončić became eligible to sign a contract extension, and as expected, he agreed to a three-year, $165 million maximum deal with a player option in 2028. (For Mavericks fans, one date still matters: August 29, when P.J. Washington becomes extension-eligible.)
With Dončić committed and the Lakers’ offseason moves seemingly done, attention can now shift from roster building to actual basketball. For Dončić—and for other NBA stars like Nikola Jokić and Giannis Antetokounmpo—the next stretch of real, competitive basketball starts well before the NBA calendar picks back up. EuroBasket 2025 tips off in late August and runs through mid September (Aug 27–Sep 14), weeks before NBA media days and training camps begin at the end of the month. Dončić, fresh off his new extension and a U.S. trip, joined the Slovenian national team today and is expected to play in his first game since the Game 5 disappointment against the Timberwolves on April 30. His return comes in an exhibition match this Friday against reigning FIBA World Champions Germany, held in his hometown of Ljubljana. I’ll be there to see in person how the newly re-shaped Luka 2.0 looks.
EDIT: The best way to watch EuroBasket games—and most of the exhibition games—is through the FIBA Courtside 1891 subscription service.
With all that in mind, I thought it’d be fun to mix in some EuroBasket content over the next few weeks—spotlighting the Slovenian national team, sharing game and Luka observations, and keeping an eye on other NBA stars across the tournament. I plan to spend a week in Katowice, Poland, to provide in-person coverage and a road trip report from the group stage.
But before we get to the games, I thought the only proper thing to do for me as a Slovenian would be to tell you a bit more about our team and why playing and cheering for our country means so much to my fellow countrymen.
The magical 2017 EuroBasket run
It might seem unusual to start this story in the middle, but Slovenia’s magical 2017 EuroBasket run was the country’s only gold medal in any team sport. It’s also the reason these kinds of competitions feel so special. Especially for a small nation of just 2 million people, it was proof that anything is possible. That summer was a payoff for years of passion and loyalty, for all the Slovenians who spent time and money traveling across the world to watch their countrymen compete under their flag. And in 2017, it all felt worth it.
If you want to learn more about why Slovenians follow our teams wherever they play, you can check out the two stories I wrote for D Magazine before the 2022 EuroBasket in Germany. Back then, I explained why supporting our national team means so much to us, and how sorry I was for not being part of the historic exodus of 7,000 Slovenians to Istanbul in 2017—one that my good friend Miha did make. I didn’t repeat that mistake in 2022. And while Slovenia fell short in the quarterfinals, me and Miha had an incredible time in Cologne, including watching two absurd Dončić performances in person: a 36-point outing against Germany and a historic 47-point explosion against France.
Miha and I will be back in action in Poland, cheering from the front lines. Most of you know me here as a rational, fact-driven basketball analyst, however that rationality goes out the window when our national pride is on the line.
The 2017 EuroBasket title wasn’t just Slovenia’s biggest success in team sports. It was also the run that put the name of a then-19-year-old prodigy, Luka Dončić, on the global basketball map. Along with his EuroLeague title with Real Madrid, it remains one of the two biggest accomplishments on his basketball résumé.
Now, Dončić wasn’t the best player on that 2017 team. The tournament MVP, Goran Dragić, was the leader. Rewatching the highlights of a young, carefree Luka blossoming alongside his roommate and mentor still brings me joy every time I need a mood boost.
The men who paved the way: Slovenian stars before Dončić and Dragić
The 2017 title was the pinnacle, but Slovenia’s national team has a long EuroBasket history. Since gaining independence in 1991, Slovenia has competed in every EuroBasket tournament and has reached the knockout stage in every edition since 2005.
Before the breakthrough in 2017, Slovenia’s closest brush with a EuroBasket medal came in 2009, when they fell to Serbia in a heartbreaking overtime loss in the semifinals. Goran Dragić, already emerging as a rising star, was sidelined with an injury and couldn’t suit up. Still, that team was stacked with talent. It featured three other players with NBA experience—Boštjan Nachbar, Primož Brezec, and Uroš Slokar—as well as two of the best players in Europe at the time, Erazem Lorbek and Jaka Laković.
Another notable result came in 2013, when Slovenia hosted the tournament and finished fifth. A Dragić-led team made a strong run but fell in the quarterfinals to the eventual champions, France, who were led by Tony Parker, Nicolas Batum, and Boris Diaw. Slovenia had another heartbreaking moment against France in a different international competition—the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo (held in 2021). Dončić and his teammates were one last-second Batum block on Klemen Prepelić away from a historic Finals showdown with the USA Dream Team. It remains one of the biggest "what if" moments in Slovenian sports history.
For such a small country, Slovenia has produced a remarkable list of players who made it to the NBA. Beno Udrih, Rašo Nesterović, and Saša Vujačić are three of the most notable names alongside Dončić and Dragić. Die-hard NBA fans might remember that all three were part of championship teams—Nesterović with the 2005 Spurs, Udrih with the 2005 and 2007 Spurs, and Vujačić with the 2009 and 2010 Lakers. But unlike their NBA success, Udrih and Vujačić had much less decorated—Vujačić’s even virtually non-existent—national team careers. Both were absent from major competitions for various reasons, some of which led to off-court drama and tension around the program.
That history of NBA stars having a conditional and not always guaranteed relationship with the national team is what makes Dončić and his unconditional commitment so special. That kind of loyalty is why Luka is so beloved by his countrymen.
Ljubljana, a development ground for NBA talent
Dončić will make his much-anticipated on-court return this Friday at Stožice Arena in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. The arena is also home to the country’s most decorated club, Cedevita Olimpija. It’s the same club—though back then playing in the older Tivoli Hall—where Slovenia’s first NBA trailblazer, Marko Milić, thrilled your teenage Substack writer with thunderous dunks back in the 1990s. If you read my aforementioned D Magazine story, you’ll learn that Miha, myself, and our high school buddies even made a pilgrimage to Rome in a beat-up van to watch Milić (and yes, we saw him shatter a backboard live) and Olimpija play in the EuroLeague Final Four. That’s still probably our biggest Slovenian club basketball success story.
Milić was an assistant with the Mavericks for the past couple of seasons but left the team after the shock of the Dončić trade in February. He has since returned to Slovenia, where he’s now part of the national team staff, focusing on developing young talent. Back in 2008, Milić won the last of his four Slovenian League titles while playing for Union Olimpija. That team also featured a 22-year-old Goran Dragić and a veteran named Saša Dončić, whose 9-year-old son Luka spent that season soaking up everything as a ball boy from the sidelines. (You might recognize that sentence from [this D Magazine story on Milić] I wrote. And if you want to learn more about Saša Dončić’s basketball career, of course I have a story for that too.)
Ljubljana wasn’t just a starting point for Slovenian stars like Dončić, Dragić, Milić, Udrih, Nesterović and others. It was also a key development stop for several international players who eventually made it to the NBA. Names like Nikoloz Tskitishvili (the infamous 5th pick in the 2002 draft), Danny Green, Aaron Baynes, Davis Bertans, Vladimir Stepania, Jiří Welsch, Jan Veselý, Marko Simonović, and Luka Šamanić all spent part of their early careers building their game here. New Orleans Pelicans big man Karlo Matković from Croatia, along with Joan Beringer—a lanky, athletic French big and the 17th pick in the 2025 Draft—are two recent Cedevita Olimpija players you’ll be able to watch in the NBA next season.
True Mavericks die-hards will remember two other names who suited up for Olimpija. Yogi Ferrell played here from 2021 to 2023, putting himself on the European basketball map with two strong seasons. And Radisav Ćurčić—a stocky, physical Serbian big man who had a brief 20-game stint with the Mavs in 1992–93—was part of Olimpija teams in the late 1980s, when the club still competed in the ultra-competitive ex-Yugoslav basketball league. That league also featured legends like Dražen Petrović, Toni Kukoč, Vlade Divac, and Dino Rađa.
That’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed this little walk through Slovenia’s basketball history. I’ll be back soon with more on the current national team roster makeup, first impressions from the exhibition games, and other storylines to follow as we head toward EuroBasket 2025.
It's not something I'm proud to admit, but this will be the first time I'll watch Luka play in a Slovenian uniform and focus solely on enjoying his performance, rather than worrying about the risk of injury.