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The First Federal Basketball League (Serbo-Croatian:Prva savezna košarkaška liga) was the highest tier level men's professional club basketball competition in the former country of SFR Yugoslavia. Founded in 1945, and folded in 1992 (1991–92 Wiener Broker YUBA League), it was run by the Basketball Federation of Yugoslavia. With a total of 16 European-wide trophy winners and 11 finalists, the Yugoslav First Basketball League was one of the strongest European national domestic basketball leagues of all time.
Although each of the former Yugoslav countries now have their own national domestic leagues, the six nations also now take part in the ABA League (commonly known as the Adriatic League), which was founded in 2001; and which is, the closest basketball league in existence today, that is similar to the former Yugoslav First Federal Basketball League.
History
After the end of Second World War in Yugoslavia in 1945, there arose a need for athletic development in the fledgling nation. Post-WW2 Yugoslavia was (with the exception of major cities such as Belgrade, Ljubljana, Zagreb, and Sarajevo) for the most part lacking in competitive opportunities in sports. In response to this, 1945 and 1946 saw an explosion of new clubs and leagues for every sport, the basketball league being part of this phenomenon.
The very first competition under the newly formed Yugoslav Basketball League in 1945, drawing parallel to the Yugoslav First League (of football), was more or less a nationwide affirmation of unity. Instead of individual clubs competing in the usual fashion, there were only eight teams. Six representing each state within Yugoslavia, one representing the province of Vojvodina, and the last representing the Yugoslav People's Army.
Only in the 1970s did the basketball culture of Yugoslavia truly come to enjoy recognition as the top nation in basketball. Breaking away from the dominance of the Soviet Union, the Yugoslav league gave rise to stars that would go on to win multiple Basketball World Championships and European Basketball Championships. After a decade of dominance, the 1980s saw a disappointing slump of talent in the Yugoslav Basketball League. On 10 January 1985, Drazen Petrovic, of Cibona Zagreb scored 112 pts against SMELT Olimpija, a record in the league.
Once again the world witnessed a sleeping giant come awake in the early 90s as Yugoslavia won two straight European Basketball Championships and a World Basketball Championship. This momentum was swiftly halted by the ethnic strife which broke out in 1991. Clubs from SR Slovenia and SR Croatia withdrew from the league so that the 1991–92 season, the competition's last, was contested without them. The country got divided into five successor republics, each founding their own basketball federations with the exception of Serbia and Montenegro, which retained the name Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the YUBA League.
Despite all these changes, the joint league of clubs from the former Yugoslavia proved to be a winning league format formula, so on 3 July 2001, the Adriatic League was founded. It features teams from all the former Yugoslav states, and it exists alongside scaled-down versions of the individual national domestic leagues of each of the former Yugoslav states.
Playoffs, as a way of determining the Yugoslav First Basketball League champion following the regular season, got instituted in 1981 ahead of the 1981–82 season.