Mahalbašić Rashid is an Austrian professional basketball player, a center, who played, among other teams, for the Nizhny Novgorod basketball club "Nizhny Novgorod" in the 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons. He is 211 cm (6'11") tall. As of mid-2015, he was a member of the Austria national team.[1]
Career before joining "Nizhny Novgorod"
Before signing a contract with the Nizhny Novgorod club, Mahalbašić was connected to the Moscow basketball scene: his family, in his own words, had grown attached to Moscow. In an interview with the newspaper "Sovetsky Sport" in August 2015, given in passable Russian, the center said that when choosing a new club, the deciding factor for him was not the financial side but other considerations.[1]
At "Nizhny Novgorod"
In June 2015, Mahalbašić signed a two-year contract with BC "Nizhny Novgorod".[1] In October 2015, he wrote a blog post on the official EuroCup website, noting that he had missed the European competition and describing how he was adapting to his new team.[1]
In January 2016, he was named MVP of Round 15 of the VTB United League: in the game against "Tsmoki-Minsk" he scored 20 points, made 7 assists, grabbed 5 rebounds, and had a performance index rating of 27.[1]
In the EuroCup away game against the Slovenian club "Union Olimpija" on January 20, 2016, "Nizhny Novgorod" won 79–73. Mahalbašić scored 13 points and grabbed 12 rebounds, twice proving to be a key player at crucial moments of the game. The team's head coach that season was Ainars Bagatskis.[2]
In March 2016, Mahalbašić was forced to refute a publication by the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, whose journalist, according to the basketball player, had distorted about 80% of what he had said in an interview about life in Russia.[1]
Links
- Wikidata (Q782619 — entry in the free knowledge base)
Sources
- old.nn-basket.ru — List of Tags — Official Website of the Nizhny Novgorod Basketball Club
- Time N — Nizhny Novgorod Basketball Players Beat Union Olimpija in Slovenia