Dino Rađa on avg 27 against Shaq, why the NBA is weak, Luka Dončić comparison and NBA’s big mistake

European basketball legend and Hall-of-Famer, Dino Rađa, was featured in the newest episode of 1-ON-1 with Basketball Network. We covered several topics that might be interesting to your audience. Please find the link to the video as well as highlighted topics with timestamps below:

Dino Rađa on Shaq calling him one of the Toughest White Centers he went up against (13:18)

“He couldn’t stop me. My third year, we had like five games against Orlando, and I averaged like 27 against Orlando. He definitely remembers that.”

Dino Rađa explains why the game today is WEAK and why he prefers EuroLeague over NBA (16:15)

“In my days in the paint — you got killed. Certain Barkleys, Oakleys, Masons, Laimbeers, they cut your head off. If you fake them and go underneath, your head is going with the ball away from your body.”
“You can do 25 dribblings, it’s all 1 against 5. Harden is shooting 50 threes a game, and they call that basketball. I don’t like it.”
“The NBA became an All-Star game, where defense isn’t played. Numbers are pumped unreasonably. People like it, people pay for it. I don’t care about it.”

Dino Radja thinks the NBA is making a BIG MISTAKE allowing 19-year-olds into the league (20:58)

“I think the NBA is making a big mistake with allowing 19 year-old kids to come to the NBA. Not that they’re not ready only as players; they are not ready as human beings.”
“Who succeeded at 19? Not even Kobe Bryant when he came in the league when he was 18, he didn’t play for a couple of years.”


Dino Rađa praises Luka Dončić and compares him to a European legend (24:09)




“He reminds me a lot of Bodiroga. A little bigger, but a guy with huge balls and huge basketball talent.”
“He showed a lot of maturity at a very early age, but I didn’t expect him to be as good in his first year. I thought he needed one more year in Europe to mature, more as a person than a basketball player.”