Aleksandar Ćapin

Early life

Ćapin started out in Sarajevo as a young footballer in the FK Sarajevo youth setup. When the Bosnian War began in spring 1992, his parents sent him and his sister to Belgrade; the parents followed a few months later. He kept playing football in Belgrade with FK Rad’s youth system. After being moved down to Rad’s second team in 1993, he gave up football and took up basketball.

He joined practice sessions run by KK Partizan at France Prešern Elementary School in Miljakovac, led by youth coach Dragiša Stamenković. Showing enough talent, he entered Partizan’s youth system, where Stamenković, Igor Kokoškov, Milovan Bogojević, Aleksandar Bućan, and Nenad Trajković coached him over the years. His teammates in that system included Marko Peković, Vule Avdalović, Aleksandar Gajić, and Mirko Kovač.

Professional career

Aleksandar Ćapin began his professional career with Krka in the 2000–01 season after attending a junior camp the club held in the summer of 2000. At 17, he still had a year left as a junior with Partizan, but when the club arranged to loan him to lower-league Torlak, he decided to try out at Krka’s camp in Slovenia instead, where he received and signed a contract. He was registered with both Krka’s junior and senior teams, spending most of his first season playing in Slovenia’s third-tier league with the juniors while occasionally appearing for the senior squad in the Slovenian League and FIBA SuproLeague.

In the SuproLeague, he was the third-choice point guard behind Simon Petrov and Dražen Anzulović. After three years in Slovenia, he moved to Germany’s Telekom Bonn for the 2003–04 season. From 2004 to 2008, he played for Gravelines-Dunkerque in France, Panellinios and Panionios in Greece, and Viola Reggio Calabria and Cimberio Varese in Italy. In the summer of 2008, he signed a one-year deal with Ukraine’s Azovmash but suffered an injury in a preseason game that September and was released without playing a competitive match.

He joined Russia’s Lokomotiv Rostov in February 2009 and stayed when the club relocated to Krasnodar. After a year in Russia, he signed with Lithuania’s Žalgiris in January 2010. He returned to Slovenia for the 2011–12 season with Union Olimpija, then moved to Turkey’s Türk Telekom in December 2011. On October 10, 2012, he signed with Serbia’s Radnički Kragujevac, where he led the Adriatic League in scoring and assists and was named league MVP.