Article by Sebastian Vasile – published on Saturday, May 10, 2025, 12:16 / Updated on Saturday, May 10, 2025 12:19
Dragan Labovic, former basketball player and international, died suddenly at 38, following a heart attack.
He was one of the most talented basketball players in Serbia and Europe of his generation, and through the FMP games he also won the convening team of Serbia for the 2007 European Championship.
Dragan Labovic, former basketball player from Asesoft Ploiești, died at 38
The Serb has evolved for one season for CSU Asesoft. Labovic arrived in the summer of 2014 in Ploiești after a season before played at Al Riyadi, Lebanon.
He appeared in 11 games for the Prahovean team in the National League where he had the following environments: 10.7 points, 4.5 decisive passes and 0.9 decisive passes.
Dragan Labovic has evolved for a season for CSU Asesoft Ploiești. Photo: Imago
Dragan Labovic was admitted to a psychiatric hospital
However, Dragan Labovic (born in 1987) did not reach the level predicted by specialists. At the end of his career, at 32, as he himself said, “he reached the bottom of the precipice” and arrived in a psychiatry hospital.
“Has a sportsman arrived here? He got to prison, but not crazy like me.”he recently told, with a wide smile, Labovic in the Jao Mile podcast, hosted by his former teammate at FMP, Mile Ilic.
Dragan Labovic remembered the difficult moments of life
“Far from me, the thought of being proud of this, but it had to happen, because it had been accumulated for years. When I decided to give up basketball, everything crashed into me. I completely clap and couldn't. Happened what happened. I should have left the basketball earlier, at the age of 20. It was hard for me to admit that I got there and then I decided to talk about everything.
The former extreme described what the days looked like in the psychiatry clinic.
You first have the reception section (laughs) … The rule is to tie you immediately, if you are aggressive it connects you until the morning. If you are not aggressive, leave you after an hour. I was in Section F, I think it's the worst, 50-60 people, 10 in the room. The only positive thing was that I had visits to the room every day. The recovery lasted a year ago. I missed events, birthdays, parties, but now everything has changed, I'm here and my goal is to set up my own club.
– Dragan Labovic
The former Serbian international has played throughout his career for FMP, ARIS, Skyliners Frankfurt, Enisey, Krasnye Krylya, Nizhny Novgorod, Petkim, Al Riyad, CSU Asesoft Ploiești, Nokia, Karpoš Sokoli.
With the youth teams he won the European championships for cadets, juniors and youth. He was the best marker of the Adriatic League in the FMP shirt.
