The Yugos Are Coming

"We always played with a lot of team spirit and determination, a desire to work together," Cosic says. "We always had a talent to wait for the best player to get the best shot, to wait for the best play to develop. We always were very good at physical preparation and at playing the rough game. But we didn't have the techniques.

"I went to the United States and learned so many things. Here's an example. I came back to Zadar as head coach and player from 1973 to 1975. I was the only player on our team from the national team, so we didn't have the best team on talent. Not at all. We had all players from Zadar. And yet we were able to win the league championship both years. In 1975, we were 25-1. All we did was bring in some strategies. A little Bobby Knight defense, man-to-man with weakside help. No one could stop us. We had defense and we had a transition game. That is where games are won. Transition. No one else in Yugoslavia was paying attention to transition. Now everyone is."

There are clinics now. There are instructional tapes. There are facilities and equipment. Yugoslav kids are lacing up the same moon-boot sneakers as the kids in Bed-Stuy. The good players have played in the U.S. by the time they are 15, traveling with national all-star teams. There are no secrets. Everyone is working on the same basketball philosophies.

Cosic now runs the Zadar club operation. He has plans for a 13,000-seat arena to be built in the next two years. Already he has opened an addition to the present building, a dance hall and a room for video games that are used to generate revenue for the sporting operation. Bingo is a best-seller. The Zadar club relies a lot on bingo.

"This old gym has seen a lot," Cosic says as he watches practice. "There have been nights inside here, the smoke has been so thick...other teams couldn't breathe. Other teams hate to come here. An outlaw gym. There was a night in 1970 when the U.S. national team played an exhibition here on the way to Ljubljana. The Zadar coach didn't want to play because I was with the national team and he didn't have a center. The U.S. coach said he'd give him a center. This tall redheaded kid, just out of high school. Bill Walton. They played and Bill Walton scored 30 points for Zadar. Do you know that? Bill Walton scored 30 points for Zadar. I told you we have great talent here."

The star of Cosic's present team is a 19-year-old forward named Arizan Komazec. The kid is 6'7" and runs and dunks and shoots the pull-up jumper as if he has been raised in Lexington, Ky. His father, Milam, was a point guard on the team in Zadar in those out-of-the-woodwork times with Cosic.

"Do you know what I remember?" Milam says. "In 1963, an NBA all-star team came to Yugoslavia during the summer for exhibitions. All of those great names. Oscar Robertson. Jerry West. Bob Pettit. Bob Cousy. Wilt Chamberlain. They played outdoors in Zagreb. I went. The Yugoslavian team could do nothing. Only Josip Djerdja could get the ball up against the press. Bob Cousy said he was the best player on the team. Josip Djerdja."

The father says the words as if he had seen aliens walking off an unidentified flying object. Bob Cousy. Jerry West. In Zagreb. Could you believe it? On the court, his kid is rolling through the practice. Going backdoor. Catching lob passes in the air. Jamming. Maybe 75 people watch the action in quiet appreciation from the half light of the stands. The kid jams again, hanging on the rim. There is a murmur from the watchers.

"Can he speak English?" Cosic asks.

"Not yet," the father says. "But he says he will learn. By the time he gets to the NBA."