Stefanovic Talks About Returning to Europe, Travels in Spain
August 28, 2023 | Men's Basketball
For Bruins' incoming guard Lazar Stefanovic, his decision to fully pursue basketball at the age of 13 might have originated from a coin flip, or series of coin flips.
ย
As a young boy growing up in Belgrade, Serbia, this was not the most simple of decisions. He enjoyed playing both sports, but he ultimately knew that he should focus on one.
ย
Heads, basketball? Tails, soccer?
ย
"Basketball was something that my parents wanted me to do, at first, as it's more an indoor sport," Stefanovic says. "Back then, I wanted to play soccer. They were more in favor of basketball since it was inside, and I always seemed to be getting sick as a kid. After playing soccer for two or three years, that was a hard decision to make. What am I going to keep playing? I remember being in my room, I'd be there flipping coins saying something like, 'OK, if it is heads, it's basketball. Tails, it's soccer.' The coin would land, and I'd be like, 'I don't like that.' So I'd keep flipping it like a 100 times but couldn't make a decision about it."
ย
Stefanovic says that he and his parents consulted a handful of doctors, inquiring about how tall he might grow one day. Upon hearing an estimate of 6-foot-4 or 6-foot-5, the decision was easier.
ย
"OK, I should probably stick with basketball," Stefanovic says. "I was better at basketball than soccer anyway, and I was playing on what they'd call the top team of the region in Serbia. I was pretty good. So I stuck with basketball."
ย
Now standing at 6-foot-7 and relishing his time on UCLA's nine-day trip to Spain โ which has included stops in Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona โ Stefanovic speaks with excitement about his acclimation to Westwood, bonding with his new teammates and optimism about the basketball season ahead.
ย
An All-Pac-12 Freshman Team selection after the 2021-22 season while at the University of Utah, Stefanovic averaged 8.9 points, 2.9 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 63 games during his freshman and sophomore years. He chose to transfer to UCLA in April and began his summer classes and workouts with the Bruins, in earnest, in late June.
ย
Stefanovic joins a UCLA squad that brings back just four players from the team's rotation last season โ fifth-year senior Kenneth Nwuba, redshirt sophomore Will McClendon, and sophomores Adem Bona and Dylan Andrews. Stefanovic will be one of seven Bruins who grew up in a country other than the United States and has already made a noticeable impression in two exhibition games in Spain.
ย
"He's a godsend for us," says Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men's Head Basketball Coach. "For us to have a guy like Lazar, who has already been trained and well-coached, for my sanity, yeah it's good to have him. He knows what it takes to be a successful player at this level."
ย
In the Bruins' two exhibition wins over the past week โ on Tuesday, Aug. 22 in Madrid, and on Thursday, Aug. 24 in Valencia โ Stefanovic averaged 18.5 points, 9.0 rebounds and 3.0 steals per game.
ย
After a 14-point and 13-rebound effort in a win in Madrid, Stefanovic registered a team-leading 23 points, along with five rebounds and three steals against a club squad from Valencia last Thursday.
ย
"We love Laz," sophomore Dylan Andrews says. "The stuff that he brings to the table, we really feed off his energy. He's a big energy guy. He always has a smile on his face, but he's a dog on the court. He can really shoot. The way he hustles and the way he gives his body up on every play and he doesn't care about what happens on the floor, as long as we get the W, that's a player who you need on the court with you."
ย
For Stefanovic and the Bruins, among the greatest advantages of the team's ongoing trip in Spain has been the ability to bond away from the game of basketball.
ย
"When you take a step back, we've had some free time here and time to build chemistry," Stefanovic says. "I think the biggest thing for us, as a team, it's given some of our freshmen who might be a little more quiet a chance to open up and maybe talk a bit more. That's probably one of the biggest things, when I just look back at what we can take from this trip. All of our guys have been able to come together a lot more than we had before we got to Spain."
ย
Stefanovic is the only player on the roster from Serbia, but he has European company with at least five Bruins who grew up spending all of or portions of their childhood years in Europe.
ย
Incoming freshman Ilane Fibleuil hails from France, and classmate Jan Vide grew up in Slovenia before moving to Madrid during his high school years. Sophomore Adem Bona spent a portion of his teenage years in Turkey. The Bruins have also added incoming freshmen Berke Buyuktuncel (from Turkey) and Aday Mara (from Spain), a pair of players who will head to Los Angeles in September. Bona and redshirt senior Kenneth Nwuba both grew up in Nigeria.
ย
"It's a special thing, what UCLA did," says Stefanovic, referring to the incoming group of international student-athletes. "These guys have had similar experiences to mine. It's easier to talk to them about certain things when I know what they have been through and how they've been coached. I know the system they have played in, so I know when they will do something on the court โ and I'll know exactly why they did it, or what they were thinking about. It's a great experience for all of us. It's good for our culture. It's good for everybody on the team, both our American players and the non-Americans."
ย
Last season at Utah, Stefanovic ranked among the top 15 players in the Pac-12 in 3-point shooting percentage (35.9%) and averaged 28.3 minutes per game. He finished his sophomore season having averaged 10.3 points, 3.0 rebounds and 2.7 assists in 32 games (15 starts).
ย
From a younger age, Stefanovic says he understood the value of being a versatile player. And while in Serbia and at Utah, that helped him get on the court.
ย
"If you're able to play multiple positions and do multiple things, your coach is probably going to play you more," Stefanovic says. "If you can only play at one spot, you probably are not going to play as much. With multiple spots, you'll have more opportunities. That's pretty much how I have tried to develop my game. I've done that to help get myself on the court. But yeah, I know that most people think that I'm just a stand-still shooter, but I would say I'm far away from that. That's not my game. I like to play on the ball and off the ball. I like to make the right reads and be in positions where I can make a decision. That's the main part of my game, constantly being able to make right decisions. And whatever it is, either scoring or passing or cutting through to get someone else open or setting screens, it really doesn't matter. It's about making the right play in every single moment that you can."
ย
As a youngster, the games of basketball and soccer were not his initial introduction to athletics. Stefanovic began swimming at around age three and four, before taking up tennis. He says that he no longer has much time to devote to tennis but considers all-time tennis great Novak Djokovic, who hails from Serbia, as one of his idols.
ย
Stefanovic eventually gravitated toward basketball and began to follow the EuroLeague.
ย
"I was always looking at the EuroLeague, stuff in Europe, a lot more than the NBA," Stefanovic says. "I remember watching the EuroLeague finals โ the final four and the finals. And they have like an anthem and I remember as a kid, I'd get like goosebumps listening to that song. I knew that I wanted to play there. I was watching some legends like Vassilis Spanoulis, who played for Olympiacos. I just remember watching all of that, and I knew that I wanted to play in EuroLeague. I really wasn't thinking much about NBA or playing anywhere other than Europe."
ย
Not until around 2014, with the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs matching up in the NBA Finals, did Stefanovic really take much interest in the NBA.
ย
"Barely any exposure with the NBA, until I was around maybe 15," Stefanovic says. "And maybe a few NBA Finals highlights where you would see who won, something like that."
ย
UCLA's trip to Spain will also allow Stefanovic to see his family in the coming days. When the team returns to Los Angeles on Wednesday evening, Stefanovic will head home to Serbia for a few days and enjoy a brief family vacation in Greece before traveling back to Los Angeles.
ย
"I'll tell you this," Stefanovic says with a wide grin. "It feels weird to be in the same time zone as my parents. In the afternoon, I'm thinking I've got to call my parents because they're about to go to sleep, and then I remember that they're actually in the same time zone. I have done that a few times, where I'm going, 'Oh I've got to call them,' and then I realize they're not going to bed. But yeah, it's been nice to be back in Europe."
ย
