One of the cool things about the NBA these days is that almost all the good players, especially Europeans, have the chance to showcase their skills to the fullest. Back in the mid-’90s, though, that wasn’t the case, and so Toni Kukoc remains in history as the sixth man of one of the greatest teams ever.
Winning three consecutive championships (1996, 1997, 1998) with the Chicago Bulls, contributing 13 points, about 5 assists, and as many rebounds per game coming off the bench (and winning the Sixth Man of Year Award in 1996) was more than impressive given the standards of that time for players from Europe or anywhere outside the US. Kukoc’s stint with the best team of the ’90s was highly successful, and 28 years after his first appearance with the Bulls, it landed him in the Hall of Fame. But truth be told, given how things were in the NBA then, he only showed a fraction of his rare talent.
Imagine if NBA teams saw the Croatian today, standing at 6 ’10”, handling the ball and passing like a point guard, destroying defenses with his three-point shooting by taking as many attempts as today’s players, and flirting with a triple-double in almost every game. They’d be talking about a player unlike anything we’ve seen before, scrambling to snag him as the number one draft pick, and whoever landed him would be getting the next superstar of the league. You see, Kukoc was way ahead of his time, perfectly suited for today’s NBA, where his skills and achievements in Europe would’ve elevated him to the status of a franchise player.
He came into the NBA with three European championships with Jugoplastika, winning a three-peat (1989, 1990, 1991) even before the Bulls who completed their first in 1993. He was the EuroLeague Final 4 MVP in 1990 and 1991, a world champion with Yugoslavia, and the MVP of the 1990 FIBA Basketball World Cup and he also won the gold medal in the EuroBasket in 1989 and 1991, earning MVP in the latter. He even led Benetton Treviso to the Italian Championship in 1992 and the EuroLeague Final 4 the following year, where despite losing to Limoges, he was again the MVP. All of this by the age of 24. Now, even with less than half of that, Americans would’ve been fully convinced of his abilities.
But what if they saw him at 18, dropping 37 points with 11/12 three-pointers for his national team at the Under-19 World Championship? They’d be stunned. This isn’t some myth of the past; it happened in 1987 in Italy when Yugoslavia defeated the USA 110-95 in the group stage and went on to win the gold medal, beating the Americans again in the final 86-76, with Kukoc named the tournament’s MVP. Even the most skeptical would have to acknowledge him after what followed because from 1989 to 1991, the only title he didn’t win, both domestically and internationally, was the Yugoslav Cup in 1989, lost to Partizan in the final.
During this fantastic three-year stretch, Kukoc added to his resume with performances like those in the 1989 Final 4, scoring 24 points with 4/4 three-pointers in the semi-final against Barcelona and 18 with 4/7 three-pointers in the final against Maccabi Tel Aviv. In 1990, he dropped 32 points with 6/8 threes in the win against Philips Milano, 30 in the win against Limoges, and was the top scorer in the EuroLeague final with 20 points against Barcelona (in the semi-final against Limoges, he had 16 points and 9 assists). Even in the McDonald’s Open tournament that year, his stats included 23 points, 4/9 threes, 6 rebounds, and 17 assists against Barcelona in the semis and 18 points, 8 rebounds, and 12 assists in the loss to the New York Knicks in the final.
In 1991, he played his best game yet. In a performance that would have made him a top NBA draft pick today, he scored 40 points with 9 three-pointers to help Pop 84 (as Jugoplastika was known that year) defeat Scavolini Pesaro 106-105 in the EuroLeague group stage. The two teams met again in the Final 4, with Pop winning in the semi-finals and again in the final against Barcelona. With such momentum, Kukoc excelled in the EuroBasket, scoring 24 points in the 97-76 win against France in the semis and another 20 in the 88-73 win against host Italy, securing another gold for the then-united Yugoslavia.
At Benetton, he arrived as the top European player for both 1990 and 1991, earning admiration on Italian courts. In just his second appearance, he scored 26 points with 6/8 threes, accompanied by 8 assists, and 5 rebounds in a win against Caserta. He put up 37 points against Stefanel Trieste in the 21st game, 30 against Varese in the 23rd, had 30 points, 9 rebounds, and 10 assists in the win against Torino in the 24th, and finished the regular season with 32 points and 9 assists in the win against Pavia in the 30th game. With Kukoc leading the charge, Benetton made waves, surpassing 100 points in 9 games, breaking the 110 mark in 5 of them.
In the first playoff game, Kukoc recorded a triple-double with 19 points, 13 rebounds, and 10 assists in the 83-80 win against Stefanel Trieste. In the finals against Scavolini, he missed a triple-double by one rebound. While his team lost the first game of the series, they went on to win the championship with a 3-1 series victory. Kukoc’s contributions—19 points and 10 assists to tie the series, pushing ahead with 20 points and 6 assists, and clinching the title with 17 points, 9 rebounds, 10 assists, and 3 steals—capped off the 1992 season with averages of 20.5 points, 5.2 rebounds, 5.7 assists, and 2.4 steals while shooting 43.1% from beyond the arc.
In 1993, he came close to leaving Europe with another triple crown (the achievement of winning the domestic championship, the domestic cup, and the EuroLeague in the same season). Benetton won the Italian Cup, but they lost the tournament 3-0 in the finals to Knorr Bologna (now known as Virtus), and in the EuroLeague, they were defeated in the Final 4 by Limoges. Kukoc’s highlights of the season included an incredible triple-double (21 points, 13 rebounds, 16 assists) in a victory against Roma in the 10th round of Serie A and three outstanding games against Scavolini in the EuroLeague playoffs. Despite his 38 points, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists in the first matchup, his team lost, but he equalized with 35 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists, propelling them to the Final 4 by recording 22 points, 11 rebounds, and 6 assists.
For the record, he almost had a triple-double in the semi-finals against PAOK, with 15 points, 8 rebounds, and 10 assists. Adding to all this, Croatia was the absolute favorite in the EuroBasket that year, a tournament Kukoc skipped to prepare for his first NBA season. Even if he never stepped foot on an NBA floor, what he had achieved by then, it was enough to guarantee him a spot in the Hall of Fame one day. After so many accolades at such a young age, it was expected he would want to test his luck in the best league in the world, where he was welcomed as the infamous European Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen roughed up in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics with the Dream Team because the Bulls offered him more money than the latter.
To cope with the tough game of the era in Chicago, they bulked up his physique, and his playing style altered a bit. The inspirations were there (his assists often left Americans in awe), but this version of Kukoc would be a good forward with a solid three-point shot and passing skills in today’s NBA. However, the Kukoc of Europe would be a superstar, an MVP candidate, and a player around whom every team would want to build their future. The then-General Manager of the Bulls, Jerry Krause (Kukoc was his personal choice), deep down knew it, but the NBA wasn’t ready for that yet. The time came when many executives and coaches wondered, watching the Croatian in action, what he could do if he went to the USA even earlier and joined a team that didn’t have Jordan and Pippen leading the charge.
Thus, they started searching for the next Kukoc. That is, a player the NBA hadn’t seen before, so they could experiment by developing him from a young age, aiming to hand him the keys to an entire team. The Dallas Mavericks did just that, executing a well-planned draft in 1998 to acquire the 20-year-old and entirely unknown Dirk Nowitzki, whom the Milwaukee Bucks had picked at number nine, and after seeing the results, in 2001, the Memphis Grizzlies, then based in Vancouver, Canada, struck a deal with the Atlanta Hawks, who had selected the 21-year-old Pau Gasol at number three. The Spaniard was the first European who won the Rookie of the Year Award, the German was the first European MVP and now 30 years after Kukoc’s arrival the NBA has Nikola Jokic named MVP for the third time in the last 4 years and defending his championship in title with the Denver Nuggets, Luka Doncic as it’s the best scorer, Rudy Gobert as Defender of the Year for a shared record 4th time and Victor Wembanyama as the Rookie of the Year and it’s next superstar and global icon.
