Pick and roll for euphoria: How KK Bosna served as Nikšić's easy win against SDP!

By: Rasim Belko @rasimbelko

“We believe that at a time when the ABA League is making decisions related to the number of participants and the competition system, it is professional and responsible to withdraw at this moment. Our cooperation so far with the ABA League organization has been at the highest possible level of understanding, and we believe that we will be part of this regional competition when we ensure the conditions and the necessary sporting competitiveness expected of a club like KK Bosna”.

This is how the management of KK Bosna explained the reasons for withdrawing from the ABA League competition in the upcoming season. It was a statement with many bolded (read: emphasized) words, implying that KK Bosna had nowhere to play and lacked money.

Approximately an hour after Bosna, Kenan Magoda, the Minister of Culture and Sports in Sarajevo Canton, addressed the public. “The Ministry of Culture and Sports of Sarajevo Canton has secured funds in the amount of 1,200,000 KM for KK Bosna's participation in the ABA 1 League, which would be the largest single amount this ministry has ever allocated to a sports collective. That contract was supposed to be signed today, but at the request of the club's management, the signing was postponed until tomorrow. Shortly thereafter, the club's official statement arrived that they were withdrawing from participation in the ABA League,” Magoda explained to the public.

However, 24 hours after the statement, Magoda reappeared in the media claiming that KK Bosna would play in the ABA League and that a press conference would be held today (Wednesday) at the FBiH Government!

The public and fans, happy that Bosna would play in the deservedly won ABA League, did not ask questions about what happened to have completely different scenarios in 24 hours. However, you must admit, it seems too cheap and transparent for this basketball comeback off the court to be the result of chance or an effort to solve major problems in an abnormally short period.

It is more likely to conclude that this was an SDP pick and roll with Bosna. And all the actors in the story are happy and satisfied, while the fans do not ask what the problem was to suddenly withdraw and then return to the ABA League calendar.

“Last week, we had the first meeting on this topic here at the FBiH Government, where a problem emerged, which we have since resolved,” the federal Prime Minister Nermin Nikšić told us today.

Interestingly, no one asked Nikšić, nor did he feel the need to explain how it is that they made a plan and agreement last week, and at the beginning of this week, Bosna announced the cancellation of the ABA League?

Nikšić's words add a new dimension to the existing suspicions. Because, what would Dubravko Barbarić and his team think if they were left in the lurch, having already had talks and agreements not only with the KS Government but also with the FBiH Government.

“This is not accidental, but a project entering its third phase. It required vision, courage, and persistence,” the happy Magoda explained to us, as if yesterday didn't exist or assuming we would forget how he wrote that KK Bosna rejected him, and he offered them historically large sums of money.

However, Magoda's statement from the beginning of the conference can be an excellent spotlight to illuminate the behind-the-scenes games surrounding KK Bosna. “Kenan Magoda, Minister of Culture and Sports of KS, thanked Nermin Nikšić and said that the SDP president showed leadership,” wrote Sarajevo sports media.

And there you have it, we've reached the epilogue of an already sad game in which KK Bosna has been turned into a tool for political games. Nermin Nikšić and a group of loyal Eurocommunists have alienated the SDP, occupied strategic positions, and have no intention of leaving, even though it was long past time for them to go.

Ahead of the SDP Congress scheduled for July 5th, which in fact won't be one, Nikšić needed a success that would showcase him as the leader the SDP and the Federation still need. Everything he did with the FBiH Government couldn't secure him increased popularity, because when he announces electricity price hikes, doesn't solve issues of road infrastructure, pensions, and the like, it's hard for him to count on popularity.

But KK Bosna is something else; it draws an army of fans who watch sports, want to see regional giants, and good basketball. Bosna needs money and a hall; Nikšić needs euphoria around all of that so that the Eurocommunists can more easily swallow the political quagmire that has led them far from all the ideas they once fought for in the SDP.

Let's say it was like this in basketball terms: Magoda is a player who, instead of a ball, holds the hall where Bosna is supposed to play. Nikšić is the power forward who blocks the defender (Dubravko Barbarić). Magoda drives left, Nikšić rolls to the basket, and scores on Magoda's pass.

The people are ecstatic, the SDP is in its final phase.

KK Bosna is a brand, a name mentioned with a smile in all regional basketball centers. However, this time too, it served as an experiment for political scoring. Because all studies on sports collectives say that results are achieved through long-term, strategically planned work. And KK Bosna, like sports in our country in general, serves as a temporary interest for political egomaniacs for whom even decades of rule are not enough. That's why KK Bosna will play one or a few seasons in the ABA League, and then once again settle into the stagnation of domestic sports and a hall frequented by the last basketball fanatics.

Once again, it will be recorded that KK Bosna became a backdrop for temporary political successes, not a serious project that this club and its fans deserve. Instead of vision and continuity, they were offered euphoria for a day, not a strategy for the years to come. And when the spotlights dim, only empty promises, shaky stands, and the feeling of being used again for someone else's interests remain.

And all this so Nikšić can play the role of a leader with our money! If it were otherwise, Nikšić would have found a partner from the private sector; there are many when tenders are being distributed, perhaps some could also be good for Bosna!