Who Is Vladimir Štimac

Vladimir Štimac (born in Belgrade on 25 August 1987) is a retired Serbian professional basketball player, politician and activist. He played center and stands 211 centimeters tall. His career ran from 2004 to 2023 and took him to Serbia, Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Spain, Germany and China.

His biggest successes came in the colors of the Serbian national team. He won silver at the 2014 World Cup, at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio and at EuroBasket 2017. With Crvena zvezda (Red Star Belgrade), he became ABA League and Serbian champion in 2016.

After his playing career, Štimac became known beyond the court. He first entered the City Assembly of Belgrade, then joined protests against a lithium mine, and later the protests that followed the tragedy in Novi Sad. Today he leads the National Strength movement. His public activism often provokes mixed reactions, so this biography relies strictly on facts checked against multiple sources.

Early Life and Childhood

Vladimir Štimac was born on 25 August 1987 in Belgrade, then part of the Socialist Republic of Serbia within Yugoslavia. His date and place of birth are confirmed by Olympedia, RealGM and the English Wikipedia.

Information about his parents and earliest childhood is not publicly known, so this biography does not include it. What is known is that he started playing basketball at the Belgrade club Beovuk 72, where he grew up in the youth teams.

He belonged to a generation of highly talented Serbian players born in the late 1980s. The scouting site DraftExpress described him in 2007 as a smart big man who reads the game well, has good hands and shows a high level of activity on the court.

Start of His Career

Štimac made his senior debut in the 2004–05 season with Beovuk 72. The following year he went abroad. In 2005–06 he moved to Lithuania, joining the Arvydas Sabonis basketball school of Žalgiris in Kaunas.

He signed for Žalgiris’ first team for the 2006–07 season. He also appeared in Europe’s top competition, but his role was small: he played only two EuroLeague games. To get more playing time, the club loaned him in 2007 to the Latvian side Valmiera.

In Latvia he established himself as a dominant player in the Baltic Basketball League. According to DraftExpress, in March 2007 he was averaging about 22 points and 13 rebounds per game while shooting around 76 percent from the field, and one of his best performances was a game with 31 points and 17 rebounds against Panevėžys. At the end of the 2007–08 season he was named Most Valuable Player of the Baltic League, as reported by the English Wikipedia and Famous Birthdays.

Return to Zvezda and a Journey Across Europe

After his successful season in Latvia, Štimac returned to Serbia in 2008 and signed for Belgrade’s Crvena zvezda. He stayed with the club until 2010. It was during this period that he first built a reputation as a strong, hard-working center who rebounds well and plays under the basket.

In the summer of 2010 he played in the Orlando Pro Summer League for the Orlando Magic. He appeared in two games but never reached the NBA. He was not selected in the 2009 NBA draft.

In September 2010 he signed with the Latvian club Ventspils, but the club released him after two months. In November of the same year he joined the Czech club Nymburk and spent the 2010–11 season there. That season he won the Czech championship and the Czech Cup.

In July 2011 he signed a one-year contract with the Turkish club Olin Edirne. In 30 games of the Turkish league he averaged 14.8 points and 9.9 rebounds. Those numbers earned him a new contract, and for the 2012–13 season he moved to Banvit.

In September 2013 he signed a “1+1” contract with the Spanish club Unicaja Málaga. In the 2013–14 EuroLeague he played 23 games, averaging 7.6 points and 5.1 rebounds. He left the club in June 2014.

In August 2014 he signed a one-year deal with Bayern Munich in Germany. He played ten EuroLeague games for Bayern with an average of 6.9 points. On 2 October 2015 he signed a preliminary agreement with the Spanish club Estudiantes, but a few weeks later he returned home.

Rise to Prominence

On 27 October 2015, Štimac signed with Crvena zvezda again, for the rest of the season. This second spell brought him his greatest club success. Zvezda won the ABA League and the Serbian championship in 2016, and Štimac was an important part of the frontcourt rotation.

In the ABA League that season he averaged seven points and 4.6 rebounds. Fans remember his performance in Game 2 of the semifinals against Cedevita in Zagreb, when he scored 17 points and helped send Zvezda to the finals. In the EuroLeague he played 25 games, averaging 6.9 points and five rebounds, and Zvezda reached the quarterfinals.

After that successful season, Štimac signed with the Turkish club Beşiktaş on 31 August 2016. With them he was one of the key players in 2016–17 and was named to the second-best team of the FIBA Champions League. He also played in the Turkish league All-Star Game.

He then signed a one-year contract with Anadolu Efes on 22 August 2017, with an option for another year. In the 2017–18 EuroLeague he played 30 games, averaging 9.4 points and 5.8 rebounds. With Efes he won the Turkish Cup in 2018. During the same season he was also named MVP of one EuroLeague round.

He spent the 2018–19 season at Türk Telekom, where he signed on 12 July 2018. In the Turkish league he was the top rebounder in 2017 and 2018, and he played in the All-Star Game twice.

In September 2019 he briefly played for Fenerbahçe, signing a three-month contract. In eight EuroLeague games he averaged 4.6 points. On Christmas Day 2019 he returned to Crvena zvezda. Before the season was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, he played 13 EuroLeague games with an average of 11.1 points and 6.2 rebounds.

The Final Years of His Career

In August 2020 Štimac signed with the French club AS Monaco. However, on 12 September his contract was bought out by the Chinese club Qingdao Eagles, and he moved to China. On 2 February 2021 he then joined the Turkish club Bahçeşehir Koleji.

In December 2021 he returned to China and signed with the Ningbo Rockets, where he wore number 91. In a game against the Sichuan Blue Whales on 26 December 2021, he set his career high: 40 points, 17 rebounds and seven assists. He finished that Chinese league season as the league’s top rebounder.

In 2023 he also played for the Turkish club Sigortam.net ITU and the Chinese club Guangxi Rhinos. He ended his playing career that year, after almost two decades of professional basketball. During his career he wore numbers 15, 51 and 91.

Career with the Serbian National Team

Štimac began his national team journey in the youth selections of Serbia and Montenegro. He won gold at the 2005 European Under-18 Championship and then gold at the 2007 European Under-20 Championship. He won the 2009 Universiade with Serbia’s university team.

For the senior Serbian national team he played at EuroBasket 2013. He was then a member of the team that won silver at the 2014 World Cup in Spain.

His greatest success came at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, where Serbia won the silver medal. In the final it lost to the United States 96–66. In that squad he played alongside Nikola Jokić. The head coach was Saša Đorđević.

In 2017 Štimac also won silver with Serbia at EuroBasket, after a final loss to Slovenia. By the end of his career he had collected three silver medals at major tournaments.

Greatest Achievements

Štimac’s sporting career includes many domestic and international successes. The most important are:

• Olympic silver with Serbia in Rio 2016.
• Silver at the 2014 World Cup and EuroBasket 2017.
• ABA League and Serbian championship with Crvena zvezda in 2016.
• Czech League and Czech Cup with Nymburk in 2011.
• Turkish Cup with Anadolu Efes in 2018.
• Baltic Basketball League MVP in 2008.
• Top rebounder of the Turkish league in 2017 and 2018, and of the Chinese league in 2022.

Entering Politics

In October 2023, Štimac said he was considering running for mayor of Belgrade and that he did not belong to any political option. Earlier that year he had been mentioned in the media over a dispute with the company Milenijum tim, and the daily Danas also described him as a supporter of cryptocurrencies and a fighter against discrimination.

He confirmed his candidacy in early November 2023, after elections for the City Assembly of Belgrade were called. On 3 November he signed an agreement with the right-wing National Democratic Alternative (NADA) coalition, whose main component is the New Democratic Party of Serbia (NDSS). On their list he was elected a member of the City Assembly of Belgrade.

In February 2024 Štimac publicly claimed that the ruling Serbian Progressive Party did not hold a majority in Belgrade and warned that buying councillors would be a breaking point. With that, he became one of the more visible opposition councillors from the world of sport.

Environmental Protests and the National Strength Movement

During 2024 Vladimir Štimac was active in the environmental protests against the lithium mine planned by the company Rio Tinto in Serbia. In August 2024 he called on citizens to protest. His name later appeared on a list of “eco-terrorists” published by the anonymous movement “Kopaćemo” (“We Will Dig”), which supports the mine.

Štimac filed a criminal complaint with the High-Tech Crime Prosecutor’s Office over this. In June 2024 he also answered a public invitation from “Kopaćemo” to meet at the Terazije fountain in Belgrade, but according to N1 reports, nobody else showed up.

On 8 November 2024 he announced that he was filing a request to establish a citizens’ association called “National Strength”. According to media reports, the movement advocates fighting corruption, defending Serbian national interests and bringing citizens together.

After the canopy collapse at the Novi Sad railway station on 1 November 2024, which killed 16 people, Štimac joined the protests that followed. On 30 November 2024 he began a 24-hour protest in front of the Presidency of Serbia, setting up a tent and inviting citizens to talk. Since then he has appeared regularly at rallies and in the media, and several athletes have publicly supported him, among them Vladimir Lučić, Milica Dabović and Miroslav Berić.

He has also clashed publicly with the management of his former club. After a poor season for Crvena zvezda, he criticized the club, and its president Željko Drčelić replied that such criticism should not be used for day-to-day political purposes.

Arrest and Legal Proceedings

In the night between 2 and 3 November 2025, Vladimir Štimac was detained in front of the RTS building in Belgrade. The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office stated that there were grounds for suspicion that on the afternoon and evening of 2 November, at Nikola Pašić Square, he called for a violent change of the constitutional order and incited participants of an unregistered gathering to attack participants of another gathering, as well as police officers. At the hearing Štimac denied guilt, and his lawyer Nikola Lakić argued that no facts support the suspicion.

His custody lasted about two days, after which he was released to defend himself from liberty. The Higher Court in Belgrade rejected the prosecution’s request for detention but imposed restrictive measures: a ban on approaching and communicating with certain persons, a ban on attending public gatherings, and an obligation to report to the police on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Lawyer Lakić filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court over the conduct of the police and prosecution, and a request with the Supreme Court to lift the ban. According to available sources, the proceedings have not concluded, so Štimac is presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

Public support came from, among others, Duško Vujošević and Miroslav Berić. His wife Aleksandra told Danas that the family had known an arrest was possible.

Private Life

Vladimir Štimac is married to Aleksandra Štimac, who regularly stands publicly by his side and who posted updates on the social network X during his detention. Other details about his family have not been confirmed by reliable sources, so they are not included here.

Štimac regularly uses the social network X, where he posts his views on current events. He most often describes his political identity through the fight against corruption and for justice.

Interesting Facts

• He wore jerseys with the numbers 15, 51 and 91, and in China he played under number 91.
• He set his career record on 26 December 2021: 40 points, 17 rebounds and seven assists.
• In the 2017–18 season he was MVP of one EuroLeague round.
• He played in eight countries: Serbia, Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Spain, Germany and China.
• He won Olympic silver in the same national team as Nikola Jokić.
• He was not selected in the 2009 NBA draft, but in 2010 he played in the summer league for Orlando.

Awards and Honors

• Olympic silver medal, Rio 2016.
• Silver medal at the 2014 World Cup and EuroBasket 2017.
• Gold at the European Under-18 (2005) and Under-20 (2007) Championships.
• Gold at the 2009 Universiade.
• Baltic Basketball League MVP, 2008.
• FIBA Champions League Second Best Team, 2017.
• Turkish league All-Star Game participant in 2012, 2017 and 2018.
• Top rebounder of the Chinese league, 2022.

Legacy and Influence

Štimac is remembered as a hard-working big man who, without an NBA career, built a long and successful European career. His approach, based on rebounding, physical play and energy, was valuable in teams that won trophies.

After sport he gained a second public role. For part of the public he is a symbol of an athlete who speaks openly about social issues, while others criticize him for sharp statements. His legacy is therefore divided between sporting results and political activism that is still ongoing.

Biography – Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Vladimir Štimac?

Vladimir Štimac is a retired Serbian basketball player, politician and activist. He played center and was a member of the Serbian national team that won silver medals at major tournaments.

When and where was Vladimir Štimac born?

He was born on 25 August 1987 in Belgrade.

How tall is Vladimir Štimac?

He is about 211 centimeters tall. Some sources list 210 centimeters.

Which clubs did Vladimir Štimac play for?

He played for Beovuk 72, Žalgiris, Valmiera, Crvena zvezda, Ventspils, Nymburk, Olin Edirne, Banvit, Unicaja, Bayern, Beşiktaş, Anadolu Efes, Türk Telekom, Fenerbahçe, Qingdao, Bahçeşehir, Ningbo, ITU and Guangxi.

Which medals did he win with the Serbian national team?

He won silver at the 2014 World Cup, at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio and at EuroBasket 2017.

Did Vladimir Štimac play in the NBA?

No. He was not selected in the 2009 draft, and in 2010 he played only in the summer league for Orlando.

What does Vladimir Štimac do after basketball?

He is involved in politics and activism. He served as a councillor in the City Assembly of Belgrade, and today he leads the National Strength movement.

What is National Strength?

National Strength is a movement Štimac announced in November 2024. According to media reports, it advocates fighting corruption and bringing citizens together.

Why was Vladimir Štimac detained in November 2025?

The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office suspected him of calling for a violent change of the constitutional order. He denies this, was released to defend himself from liberty, and the proceedings have not concluded.

Conclusion

Vladimir Štimac is a basketball player who went from Belgrade’s Beovuk to the Olympic podium in Rio, with stops in Lithuania, Latvia, Turkey, Spain, Germany and China along the way. He is remembered for his fighting spirit under the basket, his rebounding and his titles with Crvena zvezda.

After 2023 he also became a political and public figure, from city councillor in Belgrade to leader of the National Strength movement. His biography therefore combines a long sporting career with public activism that is still ongoing.