I watched a game last night that was worth the price of admission to the Balkans. The Junior Under 14 team looked like a team straight out of Indiana. Unselfish, passing, cutting, rebounding and fundamental...they played a team from Serbia. The game was tight, the crowd was into it and if you didn't know I was 15,000 miles from home, I would have sworn I was "Back home again in Indiana".But the thing that stood out to me was the poise and intelligence a 12 year old had under a very physical and pressure filled game. Playing against kids 2 years older, Nenad Demitrijevic won the MVP of the game. Numerous times he was able to handle pressure situations and hit big shots and make great passes. In fact, he almost single handedly put the dagger in the visiting team.
I just may have witnessed a star in the making. I believe that there are already NBA teams who have taken notice. I believe that with improvement he is a name that Americans will know along with Vlade Divac, Pau Gasol, Ricky Rubio and others. Who knows, one day when he is in the NBA, I can say I watched him as a kid. A kid who won an MVP in a tough game one moment and later was running around playing with his friends....friends he was leading.
