Milan Mačvan ( sr, Милан Мачван, born 16 November 1989) is a Serbian former professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player. Standing at , he played at the power forward position. He also represented the

Serbian national basketball team Serbian may refer to: * someone or something related to Serbia, a country in Southeastern Europe * someone or something related to the Serbs, a South Slavic people * Serbian language * Serbian names See also * * * Old Serbian (disambiguation ...

internationally. He was selected by the

Cleveland Cavaliers The Cleveland Cavaliers (often referred to as the Cavs) are an American professional basketball team based in Cleveland. The Cavaliers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central ...

with the 54th overall pick in the

2011 NBA draft The 2011 NBA draft was held on June 23, 2011, at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. The draft started at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (23:00 UTC), and was broadcast in the United States on ESPN. Kia Motors was the presenting spons ...

Early life

Born to a professional basketball player father who had been playing for in the First B Federal League (second-tier basketball league in Yugoslavia), infant Mačvan fled the town of his birth with his mother for

Novi Sad Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; hu, Újvidék, ; german: Neusatz; see below for other names) is the second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the P ...

due to the disintegration of SFR Yugoslavia and the outbreak of war in SR Croatia. The family soon returned to Vukovar where the youngster took up organized youth basketball at KK Borovo at age 5 but shortly following the war moved back to Serbia, settling in

Bačka Palanka Bačka Palanka ( sr-cyrl, Бачка Паланка, ; hu, Palánka) is a town and municipality located in the South Bačka District of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. It is situated on the left bank of the Danube. In 2011 the tow ...

Club career

After being noticed at a basketball camp in Požarevac by coach Milovan Bulatović, fourteen-year-old Mačvan joined the FMP youth system in 2004. Initially coached by Bulatović, the teenager kept progressing within the FMP youth ranks under the next age group youth under-19 head coach

Slobodan Klipa Slobodan Klipa ( sr-cyr, Слободан Клипа; born 1 August 1960) is a Serbian professional basketball coach and former player who serves as the U-19 head coach for Qingdao. Playing career A point guard, Klipa played 17 seasons in Yugo ...

. Mačvan started turning heads before even starting his senior club career by playing in junior and cadet European and World championships as part of the Serbian national team. After passing through different youth levels at KK FMP, he began his senior career at the club in fall 2007, ahead of the 2007–08 season under head coach

Vlada Vukoičić Vladimir "Vlada" Vukoičić ( sr, Влада Вукоичић; born 2 June 1973) is a Serbian basketball coach for the Qingdao Eagles of the Chinese Basketball Association. Coaching career Vukoičić was 19 years old in 1994 when he began workin ...

. He appeared in five

Adriatic League The ABA League, renamed to the ABA League First Division in 2017, is the 1st-tier regional men's professional basketball league that originally featured clubs from the former Yugoslavia (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North M ...

games for them before transferring to KK Hemofarm in mid-December 2007. Mačvan did not have a professional contract during his time at Železnik due to being underage; however, when he turned 18 in November 2007, he got the option of signing one and somewhat surprisingly chose to do so with rival KK Hemofarm, which paid Železnik

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

150,000 for his services. The biggest reason behind his decision to sign with Hemofarm rather than remain with Železnik lay in the fact that Hemofarm's head coach Miroslav Nikolić also coached Mačvan in the Serbian Under-19 team that won the 2007 FIBA Under-19 World Cup that summer. A couple of months later Nikolić resigned his post at Hemofarm after a string of poor results, and the club brought in Vlada Vukoičić, Mačvan's coach at Železnik, who got fired there in the meantime. At the 2009

Nike Hoop Summit The Nike Hoop Summit is an international men's basketball all-star game sponsored by Nike, held once a year since 1995, except from 2001–2003, which features the USA Basketball Men's Junior Select Team against a World Select Team of international ...

game held on 11 April at Portland's

Rose Garden A rose garden or rosarium is a garden or park, often open to the public, used to present and grow various types of garden roses, and sometimes rose species. Most often it is a section of a larger garden. Designs vary tremendously and roses m ...

, Mačvan was the game's MVP with 23 points, 14 rebounds, and 6 assists leading the international team to their first win since 1998. On 17 December 2010, Mačvan signed a five-year contract with EuroLeague contenders

Maccabi Tel Aviv Maccabi Tel Aviv ( he, מכבי תל אביב) is one of the largest sports clubs in Israel, and a part of the Maccabi association. Many sports clubs and teams in Tel Aviv are in association with Maccabi and compete in a variety of sports, such ...

. Macvan played at the 2010–11 EuroLeague Final, Scoring 3 points and grabbing 4 rebounds in 12 minutes. On 18 October 2011, Mačvan signed a one-year loan deal with

KK Partizan Košarkaški klub Partizan ( sr-Cyrl, Кошаркашки клуб Партизан, English: Partizan Basketball Club), commonly referred to as KK Partizan or simply Partizan, is a professional basketball team based in Belgrade, Serbia. It is ...

. Over 10 EuroLeague games, he averaged career-high 15.3 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. On 30 July 2012, Mačvan signed two-year contract with Turkish team Galatasaray Medical Park who also competed in the EuroLeague. Mačvan's former club

got a €250,000 buyout from Galatasaray. On 17 October 2014, Mačvan signed a contract with his former club

until the end of season. On 15 July 2015, Mačvan signed a two-year contract with the Italian club

EA7 Emporio Armani Milano Pallacanestro Olimpia Milano, commonly known as Olimpia Milano or as EA7 Emporio Armani Milan after its title sponsor, is an LBA Italian professional basketball team, based in Milan, Italy. Its colors are white and red, and the team is sometimes ...

. In November 2015, he broke his right hand, and was expected to miss six weeks of action. On 21 July 2017, Mačvan signed a two-year deal with German club

Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which pla ...

. In July 2019, Mačvan signed for Alvark Tokyo of the Japanese

B.League The B.League is a professional men's basketball league that began in Japan in September 2016. The league is operated by the Japan Professional Basketball League and was formed as a result of a merger between the National Basketball League that ...

. On 1 June 2020, Mačvan announced his retirement from his basketball career at age 31.

Career statistics

EuroLeague

, - , style="text-align:left;",

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. ...

, style="text-align:left;", Maccabi , 12 , , 1 , , 9.0 , , .438 , , .200 , , .813 , , 1.7 , , .4 , , .2 , , .3 , , 3.5 , , 3.6 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2011–12 , style="text-align:left;", Partizan , 10 , , 9 , , 31.6 , , .558 , , .375 , , .833 , , 8.2 , , 2.2 , , 1.0 , , .1 , , 15.3 , , 15.8 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2013–14 , style="text-align:left;", Galatasaray , 26 , , 6 , , 19.5 , , .476 , , .325 , , .759 , , 4.5 , , 1.0 , , .3 , , .3 , , 6.8 , , 9.3 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2015–16 , style="text-align:left;",

Milano Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ha ...

, 6 , , 4 , , 20.0 , , .463 , , .364 , , .900 , , 4.3 , , 2.0 , , .8 , , .0 , , 10.0 , , 14.0 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2016–17 , style="text-align:left;",

, 28 , , 24 , , 22.2 , , .534 , , .375 , , .795 , , 4.4 , , 1.4 , , .4 , , .0 , , 8.4 , , 10.0 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 86 , , 44 , , 19.4 , , .498 , , .341 , , .806 , , 4.6 , , 1.2 , , .4 , , .2 , , 8.0 , , 9.8

National team career

Youth level

Even before getting the first-team action on the club level with FMP, Mačvan began playing international competitions for Serbian national youth teams. In 2007, 17-year-old Mačvan had a busy and successful summer. First, in mid-July, he led the Serbian under-19 team to victory at the Under-19 World Cup in

, earning the MVP honours in the process. In the final, Serbia defeated the United States team featuring

Stephen Curry Wardell Stephen Curry II ( ; born March 14, 1988) is an American professional basketball player for the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Widely regarded as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, ...

and

DeAndre Jordan Hyland DeAndre Jordan Jr. (born July 21, 1988) is an American professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played one season of college basketball for the Texas A&M Aggies. Jordan was se ...

. Then, only ten days later, Mačvan was included by head coach Dejan Mijatović on the Serbian under-18 team, leading it to gold at the Under-18 European Championship in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, with a team-best 19.3 points and 10.3 rebounds per game over 8 games. For his efforts, at the end of 2007, Mačvan received the Golden Badge Award as the Best Young Athlete of the Year in Serbia given by ''

Sport Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

'' newspaper. In early August 2008, 18-year-old Mačvan played for the Serbian under-20 team at the

2008 FIBA Europe Under-20 Championship The 2008 FIBA Europe Under-20 Championship was the eleventh edition of the FIBA Europe Under-20 Championship. The city of Riga, in Latvia, hosted the tournament. Serbia won their second title. Bulgaria and Georgia were relegated to Division B. T ...

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the ...

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

. Coached by

, this time around, Mačvan's stats weren't as dominant as the duo of

Miroslav Raduljica Miroslav Raduljica ( sr-cyr, Мирослав Радуљица, born January 5, 1988) is a Serbian professional basketball player for KK Crvena zvezda, Crvena zvezda of the ABA League, Adriatic League and the EuroLeague. He also represents the Ser ...

and

Marko Kešelj Marko Kešelj ( sr-cyr, Марко Кешељ, born January 2, 1988) is a Serbian politician and retired professional basketball player serving as the state secretary in the Ministry of Sports since 4 November 2022. He previously served as a memb ...

took over the leading roles in the beginning stages of the tournament. However, as the matches progressed, Mačvan started regaining top form and made a huge contribution in the final versus Lithuania, leading the team with 31 points. He finished the tournament with 16.9 points and 6.6 rebounds per game over 8 games.

Senior level

EuroBasket 2009

In late summer 2009, coming off a great club season at Hemofarm as well as helping Serbia win the 2009 Universiade

tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...

on home soil in early July, Mačvan made the Serbian national team 12-man roster head coach

Dušan Ivković Dušan "Duda" Ivković ( sr-cyrl, Душан "Дуда" Ивковић; 29 October 1943 – 16 September 2021) was a Serbian professional basketball player and coach. He served as head coach of the senior Serbian national basketball team from 2 ...

took to EuroBasket 2009 in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

. Being on a young squad whose oldest members were 26-year-olds

Bojan Popović Bojan Popović ( sr, Бојан Поповић; born February 13, 1983) is a Serbian former professional basketball player. He also represented the Serbian national basketball team internationally. He is a 1.91 m (6 ft 3 in) tall point guard ...

and

Nenad Krstić Nenad Krstić ( sr-cyr, Ненад Крстић, born July 25, 1983) is a Serbian basketball executive and former professional player. He currently serves as the vice president of the Basketball Federation of Serbia, in charge of the men's basket ...

, 19-year-old Mačvan was the squad's youngest player. Despite the player's youth and inexperience at the big stage, coach Ivković gave Mačvan decent minutes off the bench at his major tournament debut game versus world champions, Olympic silver medalists, and EuroBasket runners-up

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

that Serbia surprisingly won 66-57 while Mačvan contributed with 8 points and 3 rebounds in 17 minutes of action, hitting two clutch three-pointers in the third quarter, incidentally his only field goals of the contest. The group stage continued with a loss versus Slovenia and this time Mačvan got 18 minutes backing up

Novica Veličković Novica Veličković ( sr-cyr, Новица Величковић; born 5 October 1986) is a Serbian former professional basketball player who is the team manager for Mega Basket of the Basketball League of Serbia and the ABA League. He also rep ...

at the power forward position as his scoring output dropped off to 4 points. In the second group stage outings — wins against host Poland followed by a loss to Turkey — Mačvan's playing time decreased, before getting a slight bump versus Lithuania in the closing group stage contest while his scoring contribution became almost negligible. At the first single-elimination stage, quarterfinal win versus Russia, the youngster's game saw a slight boost with 5 points, though this was followed by a complete omission in the hard-fought semifinal overtime win versus Slovenia as Ivković preferred the more experienced Veličković. In the final the next day, tired and emotionally spent Serbian team lost big to Spain with young Mačvan getting little opportunity to play. Mačvan played at the

2010 FIBA World Championship The 2010 FIBA World Championship was the 16th FIBA World Championship, the international basketball world championship contested by the men's national teams. The tournament ran from 28 August to 12 September 2010. It was co-organised by the Inte ...

in Turkey, and at the

EuroBasket 2011 EuroBasket 2011 was the 37th men's European Basketball Championship, held by FIBA Europe. The competition was hosted by Lithuania. This was the second time EuroBasket had been held in Lithuania, the country having also hosted the 1939 ch ...

in Lithuania. In early July 2013, despite receiving a call-up for

EuroBasket 2013 EuroBasket 2013 was the 38th edition of the EuroBasket championship that was organized by FIBA Europe. It took place from 4 September until 22 September 2013 in Slovenia. The number of participating teams was 24. France defeated Lithuania in th ...

, twenty-three-year-old Mačvan didn't show up at the Serbian national team training camp.Ivković ne zna zašto Mačvan nije došao, Micov ne ide sa "orlovima" na pripreme!
''Blic'', 8 July 2013 Asked by the Serbian media about the reasons for Mačvan not being there, head coach Ivković said he didn't know them and revealed that the "coaching staff's attempts to reach the player in order to see what's going on were unsuccessful". As a result of Mačvan's failure to show up, Ivković decided to make two subsequent call-ups, to 20-year-old

Nemanja Krstić Nemanja Krstić ( sr-cyr, Немања Крстић, born March 2, 1993) is a Serbian professional basketball player for Kapfenberg Bulls of the Austrian Basketball Superliga. He also represent the Serbian national basketball team in the internat ...

and 21-year-old

Nikola Kalinić Nikola Kalinić (; born 5 January 1988) is a Croatian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Croatian club Hajduk Split. Kalinić began his career with Hajduk Split in his native Croatia before moving to English club Blackburn Rove ...

both of whom went on to make the final 12-man roster and make their competitive debuts for the national team. In early June 2014, the national team's newly appointed head coach Saša Đorđević announced Mačvan alongside 28 other individuals on the preliminary list of players he was considering for the 12 final roster spots at the

2014 FIBA World Cup The 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup was the 17th edition of the FIBA Basketball World Cup, the tournament previously known as the FIBA World Championship. Hosted by Spain, it was the last tournament to be held on the then-current four-year cycle ...

. On 1 July, announcing the official call-ups for the start of the training camp, Đorđević crossed out 9 names from the preliminary list including Mačvan's, saying the 24-year-old got excluded for tactical reasons while adding he had "an unfocused season t Galatasaraywithout a specific position".Đorđević skratio spisak za SP
B92, 1 July 2014 Two days later when Novica Veličković, one of the 20 players who received call-ups, announced he wouldn't be showing up to training camp due to knee injury, agitated Đorđević criticized him in the media: "I'm blindsided and disappointed by Veličković's unfair move. We've been in constant contact before the call-up list had been announced and not once did he mention anything about an injury... More than anything else he owes an explanation to Duško Savanović and Milan Mačvan, two players that weren't called-up because I gave Veličković the advantage over them. If you're wondering if I'll now be calling-up either Savanović or Mačvan, I won't be. My face is way too red in front of them over this to do that now".

2016 Olympics

In mid June 2016, shortly after getting a national team call-up ahead of the Olympic Qualifying Tournament, Mačvan broke his pinky toe, an injury that required a

cast Cast may refer to: Music * Cast (band), an English alternative rock band * Cast (Mexican band), a progressive Mexican rock band * The Cast, a Scottish musical duo: Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis * ''Cast'', a 2012 album by Trespassers William ...

. The injury prevented him from taking part in the Qualifying Tournament at home in Belgrade that Serbia managed to win and qualify for the Olympics. Despite the injury, national team head coach Đorđević did not write Mačvan off; instead waiting for his injury to heal and eventually picking the power forward for the final 12-man squad taken to the Olympics. Mačvan represented Serbia at the

2016 Summer Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro de ...

where they won the silver medal, after losing to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

in the final game with 96–66.

EuroBasket 2017

Mačvan also represented and captained Serbia at the

EuroBasket 2017 EuroBasket 2017 was the 40th edition of the EuroBasket championship that was organized by FIBA Europe and held between 31 August and 17 September 2017. Beginning from 2017, the continental championships take place every four years with a similar ...

where they won the silver medal, after losing in the final game to Slovenia. Over 9 tournament games, he averaged 10.8 points, 4 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game.

Post-playing career

On 6 August 2020, the Partizan announced that they had hired Mačvan as sports advisor for the club president. In Novembre 2020, he left his post in Partizan. Mačvan has been producing

hazelnut The hazelnut is the fruit of the hazel tree and therefore includes any of the nuts deriving from species of the genus '' Corylus'', especially the nuts of the species ''Corylus avellana''. They are also known as cobnuts or filberts according ...

s since 2016, then

cherries A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus '' Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit). Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour ''Prunus cerasus''. The ...

, and then entered the world of

tillage Tillage is the agricultural preparation of soil by mechanical agitation of various types, such as digging, stirring, and overturning. Examples of human-powered tilling methods using hand tools include shoveling, picking, mattock work, hoein ...

Personal life

Mačvan was born in

Vukovar Vukovar () ( sr-Cyrl, Вуковар, hu, Vukovár, german: Wukowar) is a city in Croatia, in the eastern region of Slavonia. It contains Croatia's largest river port, located at the confluence of the Vuka and the Danube. Vukovar is the seat of ...

, into an ethnic Serb family. At three years of age (1992–93) he left Vukovar (which was

struck Struck is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Adolf Struck (1877–1911), German author *Hermann Struck (1876–1944), German artist *Karin Struck (1947–2006), German author *Paul Struck (1776-1820), German composer *Peter Stru ...

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

) for Serbia with his family, living in

with his mother for a period. At six years of age he returned briefly to Vukovar, where he started playing basketball for KK Vukovar. The family then moved to

in northern Serbia. His family has the ''slava'' (feast day) of Miholjdan ( St. Kyrijak Otshelnik) 12 October, and he has said that he believes in God and goes to church. He has a younger sister, Jelena (born 1995), who briefly played volleyball.