Stars

Marino Baždarić

When looking for a guard with a soft hand, who will easily bag points from the outside positions, Union Olimpija did not have to look far in 2002. As a member of Triglav Osiguranje Marino Baždarić finished the 2001/2002 season as the best scorer of Goodyear League and announced the potential which did not go unnoticed in Ljubljana. So, there is no strange that Baždarić is the best scorer of the Union Olimpija's team, beside that a true specialist for 3-pointers, who had the best percentage in that element after the regular season of Goodyear League in this season. As a shooting guard he finds himself very good in offense while defense is still his weak point although he made a giant step forward in the last two seasons. Playing very good already in his first year in Ljubljana brought him the invitation of Croatian national coach Neven Spahija who took him with the team to the European Championship in Sweden 2003. Baždarić is together with Boisa and Štelmahers one of the rare 'aboriginals' in the team since he is in Ljubljana already for two years. Consequently his statistics increased and since Union Olimpija is the first bigger club in his career, it is to expect that he will soon become the target of other clubs. Probably already at the end of this season as he is currently one of the most if not the most expensive player in the team. Baždarić is otherwise a big fan of Dalmacia, his parents come from the surrounding of Zadar, and he explains that he has chosen Ljubljana also because Rijeka, his home town, is not far away from the Slovenian capital.

Roberts Štelmahers

Roberts Štelmahers 'took care' of a curiosity that is not often found in the biggest European clubs. With 29 years old he is a few months older then his head-coach Saša Filipovski but as a true professional he does not allow to be bother with that on the court. 'Everyone has his job to do and I am working on the court,' he says. He came to Union Olimpija in 2002/2003 season as a reinforcement of head-coach Tomo Mahorič and immediately became member of the starting five. He played much more as a shooting guard in his first year but since Vlado Ilievski left for Barcelona last summer he had to move to the position of the point guard for this season. He is one of those in the team with the most minutes spent on the court but unfortunately the injury of the knee sidelined him for a couple of week at the beginning of March. As the oldest one among players he already has a lot of international experiences. As a member of Latvian national team he played at the EC 1997, 2001, and 2003. He also switched many team during his career, playing in Latvia (SKA, Broceni), Russia (Avtodorožnik Saratov), Poland (Zielova Gora, Slask Wroclav) and Turkey (Karsiyaka Izmir, Ulker) before coming to Ljubljana. It is interesting that as a child he wanted to become a fireman but became later totally addicted with basketball and even led the Saporta Cup in assists in 2000/2001 season. Robi, as called by his teammates found himself very good in Ljubljana together with his wife, daughter and son who is already practicing with Union Olimpija's youths. When for example Union Olimpija was making a new team for this season he himself expressed a wish to sign a contract for another year ...