New Magic Mr. Twelve Points

Until his Olympic debut in Athens, Nenad Krstić had played in junior competition. Following the European Championship in Belgrade in 2005 and a rookie season in the NBA, he re-affirmed his talent in a second season for the New Jersey Nets.

By Vanja Savić

After just two seasons in Belgrade's Partizan and games in the Euro League, Krstić has come into the focus of Nets' head coach Lawrence Frank. NBA coaches have picked him as the MVP in the league's second rookie team in the course of the 2004/2005 season. In the current season, he is a regular in the starting five for the same team in which the late Dražen Petrović also played. With an average of 12.4 points and 5.8 rebounds per game, Nenad Krstić has become the new Magic Mr. Twelve Points of Serbia's basketball. Like Vlade Divac, he is also from Kraljevo, and came to Partizan from Sloga.

In the NBA, you play along side with and against some of the greatest names in world basketball. Which players in your team would you single out, and which players from other teams would you describe as the most difficult to play against?

- Jason Kidd, Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson are certainly the players who inspire other Nets' players to play better. This meant a lot to me in my rookie season. I could deal more easily deal with opposing forward centres. It's hard playing against them because most centre forwards who aren't that appreciated apply various tricks during the game. This is something I had to get used to. Of course, Tim Duncan and Shaquille O'Neal are in a category of their own, but I find it hardest to play one-on-one against Kevin Garnett because he is fast and has a masterly technique.

In your view, what are the differences between European and NBA basketball?

- Physical predispositions are definitely on the side of black players, although we who come from Europe are technically and tactically superior to them. But, if you look at Vince Carter, who has everything a modern basketball player should have - proceeding from skill, perfect physical qualities to excellent overview of the game - one may conclude that Europe is still far from the US professional
league.

You play a large number of games. How do you manage this constant playing and frequent flying from one end of the States to the other?

- The travel is not as tiring in itself. From the bus we proceed immediately to the airplane without stopping at the check-in counter, and the hotels we stay in are very luxurious. It's much harder to get used to the large number of games we play, but this, too, one must and can overcome.

Paspalj, Djordjević, Danilović, Divac, Savić and others. What did this acclaimed generation have that seems to be missing lately in the our national team's game?

- They had top talent, and then we reached the point of generation change. In Athens and in Belgrade we had a good team, but even now, when I think about it now, I can't give a concrete answer. Their generation won everything there was to win and it will be hard to match their successes - says 22-year-old Nenad Krstić. He and other national team players face a task that will be far from easy. Serbian basketball needs to be put back on the track that lead to triumphs such like in 2002, when the team won the world title.