Erazem Lorbek

Lorbek began playing basketball with the youth clubs of Union Olimpija, the top basketball club in his hometown, and in the Slovenian league. Lorbek then played with Olimpija's B squad, in the minor leagues of Slovenia, from 1999 to 2002.[1]

Lorbek attended Michigan State University in the U.S., where he played college basketball for Tom Izzo and the Spartans. In the 2002–03 season, as a freshman, he averaged 6.4 points and 3.3 rebounds per game.

After playing college basketball, Lorbek chose to return to Europe, after a year at Michigan State, and signed a deal with Fortitudo Bologna of the Italian league, where he began his professional career, and played from 2003 to 2006 (for sponsorship reasons, the team was known as Skipper Bologna in the 2003–04 season, and Climamio Bologna from 2004–2006).

Lorbek won the EuroLeague 2004–05 season's Rising Star award, and originally declared for the 2004 NBA draft, but he ultimately withdrew his name from consideration.[2]

Lorbek began the 2006–07 season on loan from the Spanish league club Unicaja Málaga to the Italian league club Benetton Treviso; however, in February 2007, the deal was voided by the Italian Basketball Federation, due to unspecified violations of federation regulations. Lorbek then signed with Lottomatica Roma of the Italian league, where he became one of the best power forwards of the EuroLeague.[3] He joined the Russian club CSKA Moscow in 2008, with whom he reached the EuroLeague 2008–09 season's final, in his first season, and he was voted to the All-EuroLeague Second Team.

On August 18, 2009, he was transferred to the Spanish club FC Barcelona, for an undisclosed fee.[4] He signed a three-year contract, with the possibility to leave and join the NBA, after the second year of the contract.[5] In August 2014, he parted ways with Barcelona.[6] Lorbek did not play in 2014–15 and 2015–16 seasons. He was recovering from a knee injury that he suffered during his service with Barcelona Bàsquet.[7]

He signed with the French LNB Pro A club Limoges, in December 2016.[8] However, he failed his physical, and thus was cut from the team.[9] On August 14, 2017, Lorbek joined the Italian club Dinamo Sassari, for one month.[10] On September 11, 2017, he left Sassari, without having played with the team in any games.[11]

On January 19, 2018, Lorbek signed with the Slovenian club Petrol Olimpija.[12][13] He then retired from playing professional basketball.

Lorbek was drafted in the 2nd round of the 2005 NBA draft, by the Indiana Pacers. But the Pacers did not sign him, and Lorbek continued to play in Europe. During the 2011 NBA draft, the Pacers traded the draft rights to Lorbek, to the San Antonio Spurs, as part of their trade for George Hill.[14]

In 2016, Lorbek joined the San Antonio Spurs' 2016 NBA Summer League roster.[15][16]

Lorbek was also a member of the senior men's Slovenian national basketball team. With Slovenia's senior national team, he played at the 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011 editions of the FIBA EuroBasket. He was one of the top players of the 2009 tournament, and earned the power forward position in the All-Tournament Team.[17] In 2011, Lorbek said that he didn't want to play for the Slovenian national team at EuroBasket 2011, just 15 minutes before Slovenia's training camp started. Two days later, he changed his mind, and decided instead to represent Slovenia at the tournament, which was held in Lithuania.[18]

Dorbek is the older brother of Domen Lorbek, who is also a professional basketball player.

Note: The EuroLeague is not the only competition in which the player participated for the team during the season. He also played in domestic competition, and regional competition if applicable.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Erazem Lorbek.

• Career statistics and player information from NBA.com, or Basketball-Reference.com
• Erazem Lorbek at acb.com (in Spanish)
• Erazem Lorbek at eurobasket.com
• Erazem Lorbek at euroleague.net
• Erazem Lorbek at draftexpress.com
• Erazem Lorbek at FIBA
• Erazem Lorbek at legabasket.it (in Italian)