It was a perfect night for Valencia Basket. The team recorded its fifth win of the season by downing Panathinaikos OPAP Athens 95-83 with five scorers in double digits. The protagonist of the night, center Bojan Dubljevic, was not among those five even as he added to his legacy with another historic milestone.
Dubljevic became Valencia's all-time leading scorer in all competitions, passing Rafa Martinez, who combined for 5,589 career points in a Valencia uniform. Dubljevic reached 5,591 with a three-pointer midway through the third quarter and the milestone was shown on the scoreboard immediately. His 9 points gave him a total of 5,593, and he has a long-term contract ahead of him to allow the big man to continue adding points and records to this one.
Dubljevic is his ninth season with Valencia and has stated several times his intention to continue living in Valencia when he stops playing basketball and how he would like to coach kids at the L'Alqueria, Valencia's youth system. Dubljevic is breaking records, but also winning titles; he has lifted the 7DAYS EuroCup trophy in 2014 and 2019 and adding a Spanish League and a Spanish SuperCup title in 2017.
He has reached milestones in the 7DAYS EuroCup, too. Despite being away from that competition the last two seasons, Dubljevic remains the EuroCup's top scorer (1,445 points) and rebounder (648) and is also first in total PIR (1,683), making it to the 2016-17 and 2018-19 All-EuroCup First Team, to the 2011-12 and 2013-14 All-EuroCup Second Team, and earning Rising Star honors twice.
"No real words can describe how I feel now," Dubljevic said after the game. "I am very proud to become the top scorer in a club, it is something unbelievable. The thing is that my name will always stay in this club, and I am really proud of that."
He got plenty of help from his teammates, who made sure Dubljevic rounded out a perfect night. Klemen Prepelic led the way with 18 points, missing just one shot, adding 6 assists and 4 fouls drawn for a PIR of 26, a new personal best. Derrick Williams added 14, Martin Hermannsson had 13 while Mike Tobey and Fernando San Emeterio each got 11 in a winning effort.
On a night in which Dubljevic was expected to score a lot to break the record, he set his EuroLeague personal-best in assists, 6. That says a lot about the kind of team-oriented player Dubljevic is; he puts his beloved club ahead of any individual accolades.