I must admit that ever since my childhood days my passion for sports, especially basketball, has been driven by the success of local sport teams, especially the basketball team Cibona Zagreb, which in the mid 80’s featured a basketball player who became a legend while still alive.

Drazen Petrovic put Cibona on the basketball map as much as Cibona helped him put his name on the basketball map. Drazen's success, both in Europe and in the NBA, literally propelled Cibona to a well-known basketball brand worldwide.

Unfortunately the man who was put in charge of coordinating how well financial support from local businesses is transferred to Cibona's youth and senior programs was not up to his duty. After one decade of Boze Milicevic’s reign, Cibona's stands are half-empty in Euroleague's games and almost completely empty in some Adriatic League games.

Due to Mr.Milicevic’s interference in player personnel movement, many very questionable player signings have been made in past seasons which resulted in Cibona’s increase of debt to its former players and at the same time it eliminated literally every player who came from Cibona’s youth program.

Therefore, Mr.Milicevic’s player policy, heavily influenced by player managers, determined the fate of almost every young player who proved himself in Cibona’s youth program. Even though Mr.Milicevic claimed that none of his young players cannot play senior basketball, this season’s youth movement by Cibona of Bogdanovic-Zubcic-Radosevic (motivated by the recession) would fit in nicely with the cast-offs from last season which include Croatian all-star Zeljko Sakic, and Zrinjevac products Filip Kruslin, Filip Toric and Dragan Sekelja.

If you add ex-NBDL players Aleksandar Ugrinoski and Damir Markota who were the only two players raised by Cibona in the period from 2000-2005 you have a serious basketball team. The icing on this "wasted basketball potential" cake would certainly be BC Zagreb's PF Luka Zoric who is  just in the middle of his surprising campaign for the most improved Adriatic League player.

These 10 players would rule Croatian courts today under any coach. But they were not given a chance. They were expandable. They were literally expelled from the building to make space for someone’s provision. You all know what I am talking about.

Even such a team without spectators, it’s own players and consistent policy was attractive enough for one of the most successful Croatian businessmen in the like of Emil Tedeschi. But characteristically for Cibona his buying offer for a brand and everything what goes with it wasn’t answered at all. The scam going around Cibona was already too large so Tedeschi’s attempt to bring back a true game inside Drazen Petrovic’s Arena failed.

From the beginning of this recession-depleted season it was clear that at some point of the season Cibona would finally have to face it’s own problems. Uncharacteristically for his conservative reasoning coach Perasovic decided to, more than ever, use young and talented players such as Bojan Bogdanovic, Tomislav Zubcic and Leon Radosevic.

As a result of this change in his coaching philosophy Cibona is currently best ranked team in Adriatic League and still has a legitimate chance of entering the Euroleague’s Final 16. Recession caused a chain of events that proved that young and inexperienced Croatian players can still play serious ball while saving their team a load of money which was previously spend on someone’s bottle of champagne in a shady night bar.

But this positive happening on the court alone wasn’t enough to fill the stands on each and every game, bring back sponsors and, most importantly, convince Zagreb’s mayor Milan Bandic to secure the future funding for the club. Yup, you read it right – in the town of Zagreb it is perfectly normal that the mayor supports it’s biggest sport clubs with reportedly as much as 3,5 million euros of the people’s money going to the soccer team Dinamo and about 1 million euros going to Cibona.

As the financial crisis of the city advanced to it’s current almost chaotic phase it became clear that it will be almost impossible to meet players demands in the form of an ultimatum with a strike starting at the end of October. The deadline of the well-publicized ultimatum quietly passed with nothing new on the table for players. Some of them also tried to convince mayor Bandic to bring back the funding with almost desperate statements.

Marko Tomas, Cibona’s leading scorer in Euroleague fired one away:”In Spain, where I have played, almost everyone knows Zagreb for Cibona, not for soccer club Dinamo.” This statement was a sign that the bottom has been reached and it’s time for desperation shots, in the basketball also known as “prayers”. Some independent observers noticed that the best solution for Cibona’s players would be to rent a bus and closely follow and disturb Zagreb’s mayor Bandic public appareances during his presidential campaign.

At Christmas time, it became obvious that Cibona’s players will not receive any “answered prayers” from the town of Zagreb and nobody else. From their perspective it is now better to stay and play for their stats then to pack themselves and leave in an unknown direction on the rapidly shrinking market. So they’ve figured out that the money now needs to be put in second place in their lives. This is what the recession does in all our lives – brings back row reality with genuine feelings for life. Not bubbles. That's why recession is conditionally a good thing in our lives.

The first media to recognize this real state of Cibona’s pocket was the most influential Croatian media at the moment – www.index.hr. They've ran the this brutal but real story even before we did. We can just update that story with claims from various independent sources many Cibona’s front-office executives, unable to find any kind of help for the club they have claimed to love, are currently very busy seeking other career alternatives.

In the time when really anyone’s job isn’t secured, anyone who dares to say that Cibona must stay “afloat” should first consider two things: 1) true values this basketball organization stands for 2) how much money he has in his pocket right now.