Damir Markota

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Damir Markota
Position	Small Forward
Height	6 ft 10 in (2.08 m)
Weight	220 lb (100 kg)
Team	Milwaukee Bucks/Tulsa 66ers
Nationality	Croatia
Born	December 26, 1985 (age 21) Sarajevo, SFR Yugoslavia (present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Draft	2^nd round, 59^th overall, 2006 San Antonio Spurs
Pro career	2006–present
Former teams	KK Cibona

Damir Omerhodžić-Markota (known as Šveđo) (born December 26, 1985 in Sarajevo, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina)) is a Croatian professional basketball player in the NBA. He was chosen by the San Antonio Spurs in the second round of the 2006 NBA Draft, 59th overall, then immediately traded to the Milwaukee Bucks. During the summer of 2006, the Bucks signed Markota to a multi-year contract after the Spurs trade his draft rights for the higher of the Bucks' two 2007 NBA Draft second-round picks.

Damir escaped from Bosnia during the war and settled in Sweden, where he began to practice basketball. He played together with Maciej Lampe in Stockholm, until moving to Croatia when he was 14, after being invited to play for the Croatian League. Signed with "KK Cibona", but was loaned to "Zabok" and "Karlovac Šanac" until season 2003/04. He has received Croatian citizenship (holds Swedish citizenship as well), declining an offer to play for the Swedish national team.

Damir Omerhodžić was known as a party animal with a bad attitute when he entered the 2004 NBA Draft, but later withdrew his name from consideration. In the next two years, he worked hard to repair his image, which resulted in an invitation to the Croatian national team. In addition to that, he changed his last name to "Markota" (his mother's maiden name) in 2004.

In February_2007, the Bucks assigned Markota to Tulsa_66ers of the NBA Development League, in order to further improve his play.^[1]

His style of play has been compared to Vladimir Radmanovic.^[2]

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

HoopsWorld GLOBAL Story April 7th, 2007
Damir's profile at NBA.com
Bucks Sign Damir Markota To Multi-Year Contract
Damir's 2006 draft profile at NBA.com
Damir's 2006 draft profile at draftexpress.net

2006 NBA Draft
First Round Andrea Bargnani \| LaMarcus Aldridge \| Adam Morrison \| Tyrus Thomas \| Shelden Williams \| Brandon Roy \| Randy Foye \| Rudy Gay \| Patrick O'Bryant \| Mouhamed Sene \| J.J. Redick \| Hilton Armstrong \| Thabo Sefolosha \| Ronnie Brewer \| Cedric Simmons \| Rodney Carney \| Shawne Williams \| Oleksiy Pecherov \| Quincy Douby \| Renaldo Balkman \| Rajon Rondo \| Marcus Williams \| Josh Boone \| Kyle Lowry \| Shannon Brown \| Jordan Farmar \| Sergio Rodríguez \| Maurice Ager \| Mardy Collins \| Joel Freeland
Second Round James White \| Steve Novak \| Solomon Jones \| Paul Davis \| P.J. Tucker \| Craig Smith \| Bobby Jones \| Kosta Perovic \| David Noel \| Denham Brown \| James Augustine \| Daniel Gibson \| Marcus Vinicius \| Lior Eliyahu \| Alexander Johnson \| Dee Brown \| Paul Millsap \| Vladimir Veremeenko \| Leon Powe \| Ryan Hollins \| Cheick Samb \| Guillermo Diaz \| Yotam Halperin \| Hassan Adams \| Ejike Ugboaja \| Edin Bavcic \| Loukas Mavrokefalidis \| J.R. Pinnock \| Damir Markota \| Will Blalock