About Dejan Bodiroga
Dejan Bodiroga (Serbian Cyrillic: Дејан Бодирога; born 2 March 1973) is a Serbian basketball executive and former professional player, who is currently the president of Euroleague Basketball. In 1998 and 2002, he received the Golden Badge award for the best athlete of Yugoslavia, and the Yugoslav Olympic Committee also declared him the Sportsman of the Year. He was named to the FIBA All-Time EuroStars Team in 2007. In 2018, he was named one of the 101 Greats of European Basketball. HoopsHype named Bodiroga one of the 75 Greatest International Players Ever in 2021. He was inducted into the Greek Basket League Hall of Fame in 2022. During his playing career, he mainly played at the small forward position, but he could also play point forward, and at both guard positions. A EuroLeague icon of the early part of the 2000s, Bodiroga was named to the 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors in 2008, and to the EuroLeague 2000–2010 All-Decade Team in 2010. He was also voted by fans the EuroLeague's 2000–2010 Player of the Decade. At the club level, Bodiroga proved himself to be a symbol of basketball excellence, by lifting consecutive EuroLeague trophies in 2002 and 2003, with Panathinaikos and FC Barcelona, as he earned the EuroLeague Final Four MVP award both times. He also won each of the three major European national domestic basketball league titles: the Spanish ACB League, the Italian A League, and the Greek Basket League. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest European players of all time. With the senior FR Yugoslavian national team, Bodiroga won three EuroBasket gold medals, in 1995, 1997, and 2001, as well as a bronze medal in 1999. With FR Yugoslavia, he also won a silver medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics. In addition to that, Bodiroga also won two FIBA World Cup gold medals with FR Yugoslavia, in 1998 and 2002, earning MVP honors in the former. Bodiroga first started playing structured basketball at the age of 13.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.