Podgorica was still called Titograd in February 1991 when Nikola Mirotic was born. But in 1992, the country’s Capital returned to being Podgorica, which translated means “at the foot of the mountain”. It is here that Mirotic, the second son of Ranko and Dragana, the younger brother of Filip, was born. When in 2010 he was called up with the World team to play at the Hoop Summit in Portland, and each player on the jersey sported the name of his cpuntry, he had Montenegro written on it. But at the time he was already a Spanish player, raised in the Real Madrid academy, the so-called “cantera”, the club that had found and signed him at the age of 15, during a summer camp.
In truth, Mirotic dreamed of being a footballer. But he continued to grow and the idea of becoming a great footballer shattered every inch more against logic. When he exceeded two meters of height, he became taller than the Red Star striker, Nikola Zigic, a 2.01 mt tall who represented his point of reference. It was a signal. Then, his grandfather suggested that he try basketball. There was a good school in Podgorica and a decent basketball tradition. A few years earlier, one of the best local players, Jadran Vujacic, had opened the Joker School. Vujacic had been an excellent center in the 80s and 90s. He had enjoyed a long and moderately successful career. He also won the Korac Cup with Partizan Belgrade three times. In 1991 he did it defeating Cantù in the championship game. The starting center was Vlado Divac, who would conquer the NBA playing for the Lakers, for Charlotte, for Sacramento. Vujacic was his back-up. For Mirotic, Vujacic would have represented a lot: the first coach, a mentor and then even his father-in-law. It took a couple of years for Real Madrid to notice Nikola and bring him to Spain as a really young kid, appropriately in time to become a Spanish basketball player and to choose to play for the Spanish national team, eventually.
The first year must have been tough. He didn’t understand a word of Castilian, went around with a dictionary, and obviously for a while had problems at keeping up with his Spanish peers at school. At home he had his family as an element of support and stability. But in his second year in Madrid, he was alone, with his teammates. On the court, however, he was spectacular. He was so good that he became the first Real Madrid academy player to make the first team consistently in twenty years. Mirotic’s growth since then has been exponential. In 2009 he made his played with the Under 20 national team, then he played the Hoop Summit becoming a “de facto” NBA prospect and finally in 2011 in Bilbao he dominated the European Under 20 Championships by delivering the gold medal to Spain. Italy, led by Nicolò Melli and Alessandro Gentile, was beaten in the gold medal game. He averaged 27.0 points per game, securing both the MVP and leading scorer crown. In the final game, he had 29 points and 10 rebounds. At that moment Mirotic had already been playing for Real Madrid first team. He would win the EuroLeague Rising Star Trophy twice in a row, finishing as runners-up a third time. In 2013 he was already a second-team selection in the competition and MVP in Liga ACB. No one had ever been named best player in the Spanish league at 22 as he was.
The Chicago Bulls wanted him badly in the NBA draft. He was selected in the first round at the 23rd spot, but with no expectations of an immediate transfer. Real Madrid had already extended his long-term contract. The Bulls had a team on the rise, led by Derrick Rose. And Duje, the son of their historic Croatian scout Ivica Dukan, had been Mirotic’s teammate and friend at the Hoop Summit. But at the end of the 2013/14 season, Europe was not enough for Mirotic. He was bigger than it. America was calling. He left immediately after the EuroLeague Final Four in Milan in which Real Madrid was beaten by Maccabi Tel Aviv in the championship game.
Mirotic had essentially won everything and proved himself in Europe. So, the time was right, at 23 years of age, to go to the NBA. His coach was Tom Thibodeau, a defensive mastermind. Mirotic at the Bulls was the big man capable to shoot from the perimeter, giving the team a dimension that it didn’t have before. In that season the two starting big men were Pau Gasol and Joakim Noah. The rising star was Jimmy Butler. They implemented a 10-man rotation. Mirotic averaged over twenty minutes and ten points per game. In December and March, he was named rookie of the month, at the end of the year he was included in the All-rookie first team. It didn’t take that long to fit in the NBA world. Chicago reached the second round of the playoffs, eliminated 4-2 by LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers.
Mirotic’s sophomore year in Chicago coincided with the departure of Thibodeau and the arrival of Fred Hoiberg as the coach. But the team was not as good as the previous season: Noah played only 28 games. Mirotic made the starting lineup 38 times, finishing fourth on the team for playing time and productivity (11.8 points per game, 39.0 shooting on threes, 5.5 rebounds per game on average) behind Butler, Gasol and Rose. They won 42 games and were the first team not to make the playoffs. Rose left the following summer. The Bulls tried to reload by signing two big-time veterans like Rajon Rondo and Dwyane Wade. They won 41 games and made the playoffs. Mirotic averaged in double figures for the third straight season.
At that point, the Bulls decided to rebuild. Mirotic became the “go-to guy”, averaging 16.8 points per game over 25 appearances. In February he was traded to New Orleans, which intended to surround Anthony Davis with shooters, like him, Julius Randle, and the leading guard Jrue Holiday. Coming off the bench, Niko averaged 16.7 points per game for the Pelicans. But they too were in the process of rebuilding following Davis’s trade to the Lakers and a year later Mirotic was traded again to Milwaukee. There were many changes, many different scenarios over such a short period of time. The Bucks made it all the way to the conference finals but lost to the eventual champions Toronto Raptors in six games.
With 319 NBA regular season games plus 40 playoff games under his belt, over 4,000 points and 2,000 rebounds, Mirotic at 28 could have signed a new long-term and presumably lucrative contract to stay in the U.S. Instead, in the summer of 2019, he shocked the world of European basketball by signing for Barcelona, where he won two Spanish titles and made three trips to the Final Four out of three attempts, was named the EuroLeague MVP in 2022. Analyzing his career, some constants come up. He was in Madrid for nine years, in Chicago for three and a half years, in Barcelona for four. And he is committed to Olimpia for three seasons. Stability is an important fact for him. In the EuroLeague, he was Player of the Month seven times, a competition record, and is about to enter among the Top 10 career scorers, despite having appreared so far in just 225 games, including six Final Four appearances. He has 70 game wins with Real Madrid and another 91 with Barcelona. His winning percentage in single games in the EuroLeague is an astonishing 71.6 percent.
When he returned to Europe, he made his debut by scoring 24 points against Efes. The following week he had 17 points and 10 rebounds against Zenit St. Petersburg. Barcelona won its first five games before losing for the first time in Milan against Olimpia. That year, Barcelona won 22 of 28 games before the season was suspended due to Covid. Mirotic had 19.0 points, 6.9 rebounds per game, 61.0 percent shooting from two, 22.5 of average index rating. No individual prizes were awarded, but he would have been a legitimate MVP candidate, or at least a top five selection. In the second year, Barcelona reached the championship game for the European title in Cologne. He scored 21 points against Olimpia in the semifinal game.
In his third year, he played all of Barcelona’s games, winning 28 of them and securing another trip to the Final Four. That was the season he won the MVP title. Last year, he made his debut in the 10th round, due to a preseason injury. Then he played all the games. Finally, there was the last act in Barcelona in the Spanish league playoffs: he was named MVP helping the team win eight out of nine games, including a 25-point gem in Game 2 against Real Madrid in a dominated championship series. Two months later, he came to Milan. The story continues, the story goes on. The Mediolanum Forum is the new home.
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