Dragan Raca highest-paid coach outside of the NBA

Serbian basketball coach Dragan Raca became the highest-paid basketball coach outside of the NBA. At least, that is what his agent Minja Ilic claims. He announced that Raca had signed a three-year contract with the Chinese Wuhan Dangai worth 9.3 million.

There are no publicly available records of the contract. Therefore, it is not clear whether Raca is paid more than NCAA coaches who also have multi-million dollar contracts.

For example, University of Kentucky coach Don Calipari makes $ 9.3 million a year, Duke’s Coach K makes $ 7.25 million. So it is probably more accurate to say that Raca is the highest-paid coach outside of the US.

The 60-year old Raca played for several Yugoslav and Cypriot clubs. Thereafter, he started his coaching career in 2002 with AEL Limassol from Cyprus.

His coaching career took him back and forth between Cyprus, Greece, Lebanon, and China. In the meantime, he was also the National Team coach for Cyprus, Lebanon, and North Macedonia (2006-2007).

Dragan Raca was named the best young coach in Europe by FIBA ​​in 2002 and the best coach in FIBA ​​club competitions in 2005.

He won a silver medal at the 2007 Asian championships with Lebanon, while he was also won the Cypriot championship three times with a club team.