Champions of the world from Novi Sad

Basketball is sport where USA have the strongest league called NBA. The best players in the world are playing there. They receive very big sum of money for contracts, big lights are all over them, global popularity too etc...

But lets see how things are standing when basketball is playing for fun ? We all went, at least here once when we were young, behind buildings and play some basketball like one on one, two on two or three on three. Well 3 on 3 is now Olympic sport and these days FIBA is organizing tournaments in it. 28. and 29. October final of world series competition will be held in city of Bejing China.

What is 3 on 3 ?

It is basketball competition where 3 players face 3 other players on concrete with wooden tables and iron nets. Each team have 1 substitute, games are on 1 basket up to 21 points or duration of 10 minutes. Pitch is 15 m (wide) and 11 m (length) or harshly said 1/2 of regular basketball pitch.

Two top clubs according to results and ratings so far and main favorites for trophy are from small country with great basketball tradition - Serbia. Yes that is country from where Nikola Jokic came from to NBA! What is even better is that they are not only from same country but from same city too. It is capital of province Vojvodina - Novi Sad. Two teams play under titles "Liman" and "Novi Sad". The weirdest thing is that they are neighbors from same part of town called Liman.

Squad "Novi Sad" is dominating competition for 5 years. Squad members are Dusan Domovic - Bulut (the best basket player in the world), Marko Savic, Dejan Majstorovic and Marko Zdero. Members of other squad Liman are: Mihajlo Vasic, Aleksandar Ratkov and Stefan Kojic. Unlike in professional sports these neighbors are not hating, but respect each other. They say that they were the best so far and that they should meet in final of this competition. In previous clashes this year Novi Sad squad had bigger success.

About their success they say there is long tradition of playing basketball behind the buildings in Serbia. People need to come and wait for their turn to play! Former world known basketball aces often open new terrains for that game in hope that new future aces who will replace them will be born there. They also often return to childhood and play a little with others teaching them some tricks. That is place where kids are trying to repeat actions of their basketball heroes. That is also the place where scouts from professional clubs are searching for young talents. On question where are people from USA there because we all know they have basket behind every house, they reply that they play 5 on 5 more and recently started with 3 on 3.

I don't need to say that recreation is good for health so if you have conditions you can play against your neighbors too. If you start to play who know where you can end up. New thing is that regional sport channel Sport Club has started with covering this sport. It is fast and interesting to watch too. I think it has big future.