By Semih Tuna / info@eurohoops.net
Besiktas is currently leading the standings in the Turkish BSL domestic league, and the team is a BKT EuroCup contender, aiming for a spot in next season’s EuroLeague.
Meanwhile, in the middle, there’s Dusan Alimpijevic, one of the best young coaches in Europe and also the head coach of the Serbian national team.
It’s the perfect storm for the club and also for coach Alimpijevic, who talked to Eurohoops about everything, starting from his club, going to the national team and Nikola Jokic and finishing not only with the FIBA Europe questions, but also with his personal approach to coaching, his aspirations and on and off court dreams.
Q: Coach, you built teams at both Bursaspor and Beşiktaş that almost started from scratch and yet quickly developed a clear identity. Looking back, what do you think is the common secret behind this from zero to success journey, wherever you go?
Support of management. Because all ideas and all vision, all our system, are for nothing if management will not support it. So I have this luck that in both clubs I found understanding from upper management for my ideas, for bringing players and improving organisation, and putting a system and vision for years. So that was the same thing from the first day here in Beşiktaş. We had common ideas of what we want, what kind of success we are searching for, but the most important thing was what kind of character we want to build in these three years.
Q: When you came to Turkey five years ago, you were a talented coach but still relatively new at this level. Five years later, you have become one of the most talked-about coaches in all of Europe. How would you describe the differences between the Dusan of five years ago and the Dusan now?
I mean, the most important thing for myself, and for all coaches, is to constantly improve ourselves. I’m dedicated to the job, like on my first day when I started to coach. All the time investing in knowledge, searching for new ideas, searching for the new tendency of basketball, and talking about new topics. So there is no big difference between Dusan five years ago and today in terms of dedication, in terms of passion, in terms of vision, in terms of emotions that I feel for basketball. What is different for sure is all these good things and successes that we had in the last five years, and the way we built slowly small budget teams to some very successful roads.
Q: And you have also more children.
Yes, this is the biggest change in my life. You know how they say when you have one, you have one, when you have two, you have three. The second one has energy for four, you know.
Q: What do you mean?
I mean, when you have two kids, it’s like you have three. When you have one, it’s one, but when two comes you have a feeling that you have three.
Q: As you mentioned recently, basketball has become much more popular. Right now, you might be one of the most loved figures in the club, and we often see comments like “I wish there was someone like Dusan Alimpijević in football too.” How proud does this make you?
Very proud. Very proud and very grateful to have this relationship with the fans from the beginning. To be honest, I feel this more and more every day. Yesterday I was in a soccer game, and it was unbelievable. Every time I go to a soccer game, when I go to malls, when I go to a restaurant, I can feel this love from Beşiktaş fans. It becomes really huge and big. What is really the most important thing for me, one day when I leave this club and maybe after five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years when I come back to watch Beşiktaş games, I believe that the fans will remember me for the passion and all these emotions that I give to Beşiktaş. Also, I believe that my kids will be proud on things that their dad did in Beşiktaş. So this is my dream, one day, when I come back to watch the Beşiktaş game in Istanbul with my kids, to remember what their father did for this club.
Q: After the London Lions game, you spoke in the post-game interview about how meaningful it was for them to beat you. Do you feel a change this season?
Absolutely. Absolutely. Now I have totally different games to play, and it’s very difficult. This roster, our roster is good, but for sure it’s not the roster that we have, like 17 or 18 players that I can rest some of them and give them some fresh air. EuroCup is a huge load, also like EuroLeague, because you know, in EuroLeague you have more than 70 per cent of charter flights, in EuroCup you don’t have. Also, in the EuroLeague, you have much wider rosters, 17–18 players. Here is not the case. You have 11 players who can contribute, and you have three or four young prospective guys who are more for practice. So it’s a huge loading also. Difficult trips, difficult schedules of trips. It’s not just that you go by plane, and then you have like 30 minutes to the hotel. For example, for the Chemnitz game, we had to travel for two more hours by bus after our flight. Roads are different from those in the EuroLeague. All these combined are a huge load.
Q: When you put all this together with the motivation opponents have against you…
As you mentioned, I watched this post-game interview. They were very happy, and they absolutely deserve it. I’m very happy for London because they did it with character; they felt they wanted this. Now, when I’m watching our opponents playing other games and then against us, I can see a huge difference. This is normal. Everybody is hot on Fenerbahçe or Efes when they play against them. Everybody wants to show their best. I don’t want to put my club and myself in the same line with Fener or Efes because we know how huge they are budget-wise. But now I feel that people approach our games much more seriously in a way of giving energy, and on the other hand, they are much more relaxed because nobody has anything to lose against us, which is not true. We are human beings like everybody else. One day, for sure, we will lose, and this is normal, but we are struggling now a lot to beat opponents because you have quality, motivation, and relaxed moments offensively, which gives them some more difficult shots scored.
Q: I get everything you said, and I know that you like underdog mentality, but you are not an underdog this year…
No, this year we are not for sure. Also, winning is a habit. I said to my players the same thing. How we will finish at the end of the season and how strong we will finish are much more important than today. But if you don’t have these kinds of signs that you hear right now, then it’s not even possible to come to that strong finish of the season. So this is a good sign that we can do something.
Q: When you’re trying to bring your team back to life, what comes first for you: tactics, mindset or human relationships? And how do you recognise the moment when you say “OK, this team is on the right path now”?
Human relationship is coming before and after the game. So when it’s up to game, then it’s all other things in my opinion. It’s about tactic, it’s about mentality, it’s about character, it’s about approach, it’s about preparation, it’s about fighting with yourself, and fighting with the opponent. So it’s all about this and all combined. When we want to come back to a game, I put all these things first. Character, mentality, our preparation, tactical problems, maybe I made mistakes. So what we need to change is what I made as a wrong decision before the game. I have to start with myself first, what I need to change to be better in this game. Many times you decide something before the game, but you see it’s not going well, so you have to change something from your side. Of course, this relationship is also coming before and after the games.
Q: You once described working at a big club like Beşiktaş in Istanbul as one of the best jobs in Europe. Even though you received full-time offers from your league teams and the Serbian national team back then, you chose to stay at Beşiktaş. What was the main reason behind that decision?
Many reasons, of course, combined. First of all, I enjoy being in Beşiktaş. I enjoy being part of Beşiktaş because this is a really huge club. This is a 20 million population of fan base. I really enjoy. There are not too many clubs in Europe that have a 20 million fan base. Turkey is huge. When you are huge as a club, you also have a big fan base. I enjoy working in Beşiktaş. This is the first thing. Also, my relationship with the upper-level management. Every day for me is a new joy. I really enjoy coming to every practice and coming to this office to work with my colleagues and my coaches. Also, I have a great coaching staff here. I enjoy working with my coaching staff.
And also, I have a wish at the end, but no less important. I have a wish to do something big with the club. We have some records, we have good games, we have big games, we build something new here, but everything will be in the past. The trophy nobody can take you out. So I really want to try to do something big with the club. Also, I have a very ambitious management who wants to win a trophy.
Q: Do you think having such a strong sense of belonging is an advantage for a coach, or can it sometimes become a burden that makes decisions harder?
It’s absolutely advantage. When you start to live with the club and to believe more than anything else, when you start to feel the club from inside and outside, when you start to feel this mentality of Beşiktaş. This is also what I said in some previous interviews. I felt that Beşiktaş fans are not only for the wins and losses. They are watching how you are fighting, how much you are fighting, what kind of character you are living on a court, what kind of approach you have, and they know to respect this. Our fans are different, and I really respect this, and I really like it. Our fans are really different. They like warriors, they like fighters. What will be at the end of the game, you will win or not, I’m not sure that this is in first place for them. In the first place, for our club, this warrior mentality. Absolutely, I start to enjoy more when I start to feel more like a Beşiktaş member.
Q: In your first season at Beşiktaş, you reached three semifinals in three different competitions. Last season finals in both the league and the cup. This season has seen a record-breaking start in the league and an impressive EuroCup run. How do you evaluate this growth from the inside? Are the results more satisfying for you or the identity you see on the court?
First, I have to say that in all these years, the main and most important thing was the players. They were the most important thing. It’s not about me, it’s about players. We did a great job choosing good players. In these three years, we replaced only one player. That means that we are doing a very good job in choosing players. Every year after our season, players are going for bigger contracts, better conditions, or going to the EuroLeague or other leagues with better conditions. That means we are really doing a good job in scouting players for Beşiktaş.
We didn’t just go and change players all the time. Changing players is not just an emotional plus and minus; this is also a financial problem. You need to cut somebody, save money, bring another one, and incur extra expenses. We were also very responsible in spending money in all three years.
So the answer is we made very good scouting research, and I’m very satisfied with how we develop as a club year by year, with three semifinals, two finals, and now this year, how it’s going. It goes well in a good way, thanks to God.
Q: You mentioned selecting players. During the summer before the season started, you said you still had one or two weeks to decide whether to add a player, but no additions were made. Is that idea still somewhere in your mind?
I’m always for that when you are bringing a player, you are not bringing any player. You need to bring a good player, and you need to bring it if you need something. To bring a player just because somebody thinks that we need a player, I never done something like this. We are on the market, we are searching for names, but we don’t want to bring any player.
Right now we have 23 games, 20 wins, and 3 losses. Yes, there is a big consideration because of injury problems. One injury can destroy your season. This is the only reason that we are thinking right now, because everything else is good. We just want to be secure in case of injuries. Without injuries, no. Smart people react before injury comes, because when injury comes, then you are too late. We need to behave more responsibly. The player pool is very small right now. More games, more injuries, fewer practices. I am strongly behind the idea that good practice is protection for the players.
Q: As a coach, is there a certain point where you say “this team fully represents who I am”, and how close is today’s Beşiktaş to that point?
Actually, every year I’m trying to select people who have a stronger character. Every year, I recognise in some games that OK, this is exactly what I wanted. But everything is a process. Nothing comes overnight, and nothing comes in a short period. For everything you need time and you need hard work. Time is nothing without work. You have to work, and then you have results.
Of course, there are limits. In all these years, there were financial limits. You cannot put yourself in a line with four, five, six, or seven times bigger budgets. Same with this year. There were a lot of games that we didn’t play our best basketball, but because of our character and mentality, we found a way to win. Every game like this, you are more and more proud of your players because they show they believe and they never give up.
Q: You have said before that coaching Beşiktaş in the EuroLeague is one of your biggest goals. In today’s European basketball landscape, how realistic is it for Beşiktaş to become a permanent EuroLeague team? Is sporting success enough, or does it also require a different level of club structure, organization and financial system?
There is a different club structure if you go to EuroLeague, but what I believe and what I saw with my eyes all these years from inside is that this club is ready to go to EuroLeague with all these terms one by one. Marketing, medical block, strength and physical coaching staff, management, you can see that we are ready.
Also, you have potentially two big gyms to be your home. You have a fan base that can make every game full. We all play for the fans. For that kind of challenge, financial support is the most important. I believe that Beşiktaş as a club has the potential to go to the EuroLeague and to compete financially in the future.
Q: Coach, after taking over Serbia, you became one of the most popular coaches in Europe. What has this change brought to your regular life?
Serbia started to follow Beşiktaş more than before. People who like basketball follow Beşiktaş now because the national team coach is the head coach of Beşiktaş.
Basketball is a very popular sport in my country. This is sport number one. Partizan and Red Star are filling their gyms with 20,000 people every game. This atmosphere, the whole world talks about. When you are the head coach of a national team, of course, you are under the spotlight. All eyes on you.
People know assistant coaches, physiotherapists, strength coaches, and even the 14th player on the bench. Serbia lives for basketball. Basketball brought us happiness in some very sad historical moments. The biggest thing it brought me is pride and dignity when I stand under the flag, knowing that I am in front of the whole country for basketball.
Q: You started with two wins out of two after very tough games.
Yes, we survived and found a way to win the games. It will be more and more interesting, especially against Turkey in February.
Q: You’re looking forward to it?
Absolutely. This is the kind of game we are living for. We will have one of the best and hottest national teams in front of us, one of the best coaches, and, for sure, one of the best rosters.
Q: Coach, you spoke before about Nikola Jokic and Bogdan Bogdanovic and how they have publicly praised your coaching philosophy. When working with players of that calibre, how much should a coach guide and how much should he balance and manage?
I think it’s easier to work with them than with some other level people, because basketball players, when they accomplish almost everything that they could in their life, when they are satisfied with everything that they did, then it’s an easier approach to them.
I haven’t seen a more normal and humble guy than Nikola Jokic. I had the opportunity to talk with Bogdan Bogdanovic and all the other players from the EuroLeague. Believe me, these conversations were the easiest conversations. I didn’t need to explain anything. Everybody understands what we need and what our mission.
I always say that knowledge and authority on the players is the first thing they want to see. If they see this, then you are really OK with them. It will be for sure some challenge, but I think it’s the most positive challenge for me.
Q: Coach, it’s a personal question. In last year’s interviews, you told me, “I owe Nikola Jokic a beer.”
It will be in the summer, not just a beer. He made a great commercial for me. I told him, “You didn’t need to do this.” He is really humble and great.
He also followed our national team games. I didn’t believe he even had time to watch these clinics, but he sent me a picture from his house watching a clinic from Belgrade. I was really surprised.
After that, he texted me a couple of times after Beşiktaş games. He watched the game and told me what I did at the end in that minute, how this player did this. I was thinking he was joking, but he really watched. I saw that he is watching.
Q: Completely different topic. Do you think legendary names like Željko Obradović, Ettore Messina, and Gordon Herbert stepping away from their roles in a short period of time is just a coincidence or a sign that the coaching philosophy in European basketball is changing?
We talked about this in previous interviews. It’s difficult for younger coaches to break into the EuroLeague circle. This is a little bit more closed circle, but once you jump in, you stay there for many years for a reason.
This is elite competition with the best coaches and coaching staff. I’m not talking only about head coaches but also assistant coaches. Players are the best ones in the EuroLeague.
I’m not sure if this is something connected. I believe it’s just a season like this. Messina and Željko were out of clubs in a short period. I think this is more about other things than basketball. People who won this many trophies and EuroLeagues, we cannot say anything else.
Good philosophy is always good philosophy. You just need to adjust. Željko is one of the best, and one of the reasons why he is one of the best is that he always adjusts to new tendencies in basketball. I believe they will be back.
Q: Coach, in the past, coaches had fewer games on the calendar and could practice more comfortably. With today’s increasingly packed schedule, many coaches complain about not being able to practice enough. Do you think this requires a new kind of adaptation, especially for younger coaches compared to 10 or 15 years ago? In which areas do coaches feel more pressure today?
Do you know the number of official injuries in the first eight rounds of the EuroLeague?
Q: Close to 200?
Close to 300. I can check right now because I got the official confirmation. It’s around 270 something. This is unbelievable. This is a huge number of injuries, and this is only the first 18 rounds.
Once players and organisations understand that the preparation period is crucial for the whole season, what you do in the preparation period is 70 per cent of the rest of the season in terms of protecting your body, preparing for high-level pressure and the toughest contacts in basketball history. Basketball is becoming more contact than ever.
When they understand that there is no strong house without a strong basement, this preparation period is zero floor. If you make it tough, the house will be strong.
But unfortunately, we are going in a direction with fewer and fewer practices because people think they protect players with fewer practices. They think they protect players with fewer games, but we are going to more games. Then we need a better calendar schedule. Players need a preparation period. In the season, you don’t have time to practice.
How many coaches stay out of a job because of injuries? This is one of the reasons. Major injuries at the beginning of the season, and coaches lose jobs.
Q: They asked you this after the London Lions game, but since we are not in the post-game interview, I can ask it now. The NBA–Euro project and the future of European basketball are being discussed more than ever. Do you see this project as a threat or as an inevitable transformation?
I see this as a positive. Competition pushes organisations to be better. If you have two good organisations, they push each other. No one can be relaxed.
I believe in EuroLeague, and I believe in that organisation from the first day. It was the one and only elite organisation in every sense. Basketball quality, talent, money-wise, everything was at the highest level. I always stick to the organisation that has been here from the beginning.
They are here in Europe. How can someone from another continent come and explain to us better how to do basketball? This is a question mark.
I believe this is good for our job. It will be more competitive. I don’t see minuses, but EuroLeague should stay what EuroLeague is.
Q: I understand everything you said, but in 2025, it’s mostly all about money, right?
Unfortunately yes. Or, fortunately, because of players. They know how to make money and big money. There is no question about that.
I don’t see too many minuses. The question is what kind of organisation they want to be. There are conditions for gyms, such as long-term contracts. I’m not sure how many clubs are ready for that.
Q: In the EuroLeague–FIBA–NBA triangle, what kind of structure do you think European basketball will have over the next ten years?
Who knows? Nobody knows. I believe the EuroLeague will go for more teams. I believe Russian clubs are coming back very soon. There will be more space for ambitious clubs.
What kind of structure will be inside, I’m not sure. Licenses A and B, ownership of the league, two groups of 12, one group of 24. Nobody knows.
But I believe the EuroLeague will go for more clubs.
Q: Despite the intense rivalry, I see many Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray fans on social media appreciating the work you are doing at Beşiktaş. Do you also get this kind of feedback from rival fans on the street?
Yes, yes, to be honest, a lot. And I really respect that. To be honest, here in Turkey, I have zero bad moments on the street. As a Beşiktaş coach who is emotional and shows this on the court, you can piss off somebody, you know, but zero problems.
A lot of Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray fans show respect to me. I believe that whenever we lose a game, I congratulate them. I never cry or complain about something else. I’m always straightforward. When somebody deserves it, I shake hands and congratulate them.
Q: Last question. When one day your coaching career comes to an end, what would you like people to say about you?
If I need to choose one or two things, I would like people to say that I was fair, that I was giving myself one hundred and one per cent. That I was leading by example. If I’m coming first, I’m going last. If I’m dedicated to my job, watching games, doing scouting with my coaching staff, talking nights and nights to find the best solutions.
I would like people to notice that I was professional, that I was always fair, that I was giving a chance to everybody the same, and that I never separated people. Everybody was the same for me.
Of course, I made mistakes in life like everybody, but even these mistakes were made in favour of the success of the club.