Vlade Đurović is a Serbian professional basketball coach and former player.
Early life
Đurović was born to parents Danilo Đurović from Sokolac and Mileva Cerović from Rogatica, both active World War II participants on the Partisan side who moved to Belgrade after the war, got married, and started a family. Growing up in the Belgrade neighborhood of Cerak, young Vlade played various sports, including football, basketball, and handball. At one point during the late 1950s, he even considered pursuing football in a more structured environment, registering for Red Star Belgrade's youth categories under the tutelage of up and coming young coach Miljan Miljanić, but soon gave it up.
Playing career
His successful athletic career started as a basketball player in OKK Beograd in 1959. After passing different age levels within the club's youth system, Đurović made his first-team debut in 1964. He ended up playing until 1973.
Coaching career
By the end of his playing career, he wanted to stay at OKK Beograd, he finished a coaching school and became the first professional in the history of the "OKK Belgrade." In the "OKK Belgrade" has worked with juniors and cadets. For his coaching career thankful to his godbrother Bogdan Tanjević, who persuaded him to train Sloboda Dita from Tuzla, and thus begins his rich coaching career. In 1982 Đurović, became head coach of Šibenka and he had the extraordinary luck to train young Dražen Petrović. In 1983 he won the championship title with Šibenka but only for sixteen hours, as the Board of Directors of the Basketball Association of Yugoslavia, to an urgently convened session, decided to cancel the game and ordered a rematch in Novi Sad. Šibenka decided to boycott it, and the title was awarded to Bosna. In the same year reached with Šibenka, the final of FIBA Korać Cup but was defeated for the second consecutive time by the same team, the French Limoges CSP of Richard Dacoury and Ed Murphy. After a one-year passage from Titograd and Budućnost, the summer of 1985 he joined Zadar. He stayed there just one year and led the team to the league title against back-to-back European Champions Cibona although Zadar struggled to the playoff finals with handicap seat. The 1986-87 season he was found to train the team of Crvena zvezda and despite the fourth place in the regular season ranking, his team overcame the obstacle of Cibona in the semifinal and had the opportunity to claim the title towards super talented and young team of Partizan. Eventually, the title was lost with 0-2 defeats. In his second year in Zvezda, incidentally that was the last of Yugoslavia over the next 14 years, he didn't manage something important in the domestic competitions, while in the Korać Cup reached the semifinals were eliminated rather easily by subsequent winner of institutional, Real Madrid. In 1988 he went to Greece to coaching Panionios which these days was the third great power in the Greek League behind the eternal enemies of Thessaloniki, Aris and PAOK. Τhere depending on the competition, which began gradually to grow, succeed maintaining Panionios in the first four league positions and some march to their quarterfinals of Korac Cup in 1990 and 1993. His greatest success, however, was the victory in the final of Greek Cup towards the recently European Cup Champions PAOK of his old player in Zvezda, Branislav Prelević. In 1993, Vlade Đurović leaves Panionios although the team that year had a roster capable of great things both in Greece and in the Korać Cup. The next two years had a pass from Aris and AEK without accomplishing something great. On 17 April 1996 Đurović got a job in Limoges until the end of the season with a view to lead the team in winning the French Cup and the second position for participation in playoffs. From now he began to decline his coaching career after he was found to train clubs beyond the high European level in Cyprus and Belgium. In December 2011 Vlade returned after 23 years at home in OKK Belgrade.
Post-coaching career
Đurović became the president of the Board for OKK Beograd on 7 October 2017. He left the position in September 2019. He is a frequent pundit on Radio Television of Serbia basketball broadcasts.
