Zoltán Horváth (27 September 1979 – 28 December 2009) was a Hungarian professional basketball player. He played for the Hungarian national basketball team from 2005 to 2009.
Horváth began his career on senior level in 2003 with the team of the
PVSK Panthers
PVSK-Panthers, for sponsorship reasons known as PVSK-Veolia or simply Pécs, is a men's basketball club based in Pécs, Hungary. It was the oldest non-Budapest based basketball club playing in the Nemzeti Bajnokság I/A, the first division of Hun ...
from
Pécs
Pécs ( , ; ; Slovak language, Slovak: ''Päťkostolie''; also known by #Name, alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the fifth largest city in Hungary, on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the c ...
. He soon became the leading rebounder of the team, and in 2005 moved to the Hungarian league's defending champion,
Atomerőmű SE
Atomerőmű SE, sometimes shortened to ASE, is a Hungarian professional basketball team based in Paks. The team plays in the Nemzeti Bajnokság I/A, the highest professional league in Hungary. The team was founded in 1979 and has won the Hungaria ...
. There, Horváth won the domestic championship and reached the national cup's final in his first year, and played in the
FIBA EuroCup
FIBA EuroChallenge (called the FIBA Europe League in 2003–05, and FIBA EuroCup in 2005–08) was the 3rd-tier continental club basketball competition in Europe, from 2003 to 2015. It was organized and run by FIBA Europe. It is not to be confus ...
the following season. In 2007, he was signed by
PAOK Thessaloniki
PAOK (, Πανθεσσαλονίκειος Αθλητικός Όμιλος Κωνσταντινοπολιτών, ''Panthessalonikeios Athlitikós Ómilos Constantinopoliton'', ''Pan-Thessalonian Athletic Club of Constantinopolitans''), commonly ...
, but played just four games for them before returning to Atomerőmű. Horváth then again became part of the defending domestic champion's roster, in that case Falco KC Szombathely. He reached the domestic cup's final in 2009, and developed into one of the league's dominating players during his last months, scoring more than 20 points in the first five matches of the season.
As part of his country's national team, Horváth took part in one match of the
EuroBasket 2005 qualification
Qualification for the 2005 FIBA European Championship, commonly called FIBA EuroBasket 2005 took place between 8 September and 25 September 2004.EuroBasket 2007 qualification
Qualification for the 2007 FIBA European Championship, commonly called FIBA EuroBasket 2007 took place between 31 August 2006 and 16 September 2007.EuroBasket 2009 qualification's relegation. Although the Hungarian team eventually did not qualify for any of these tournaments, they at least avoided relegation from the Division A.
On 28 December 2009, Horváth was killed in a traffic accident on his way to
Szombathely
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Szombathely (; ; also see #Etymology, names) is the 10th largest city in Hungary. It is the administrative centre of Vas County in the west of the country, located near the border with Austria. Szombathely lies by the streams ''Perint'' and '' ...