The basketball career of Stanyslav Medvedenko is one for the books.
Born in a village near Kyiv 12 years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Medvedenko earned a name for himself in the NBA. He won two championship titles with the Los Angeles Lakers, alongside basketball legends Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.
Now, the 41-year-old baller has set his aim at a very different goal – giving a voice to his local community, which has long been entrenched in legal battles against heavy-handed construction companies.
To that end, Medvedenko is running for the Kyiv city council in Oct. 25 local elections. He runs with Voice, a liberal opposition party that holds 19 seats in parliament and is likely to win only a small representation in the city council. Medvedenko is unbothered: He believes that he and the party he represents can make a difference.
“I’m a team player,” Medvedenko told the Kyiv Post. “One person can’t break through the current system. We need a group of people in the Kyiv council to achieve success.”
Ukrainian in NBA
Slava Medvedenko, as he was known to basketball fans around the world, is Ukraine’s only NBA champion to date.
Medvedenko, then a 19-year-old player from Ukraine, went undrafted in the 1998 NBA draft. Two years later, he was offered a contract by the reigning Los Angeles Lakers. Medvedenko became only the second non-American player signed by the Lakers in the team’s then 53-year history.
However, power forward Medvedenko wasn’t able to receive substantial playing time in Phil Jackson’s team.
The 1999-2002 Lakers, coached by Jackson, are considered one of the greatest teams in basketball history with Bryant, O’Neil, Derek Fisher, Rick Fox and Robert Horry starting most of the games. Medvedenko came off the bench and averaged five points per game and two rebounds.
Ukraine’s player Stanyslav Medvedenko (C) jumps to score as Russia’s Petr Samoylenko tries to stop him during a Group A qualification game for the European Basketball Championship in Vrsac, northern Serbia, Sept. 16, 2005. (AFP)
In 2003, Medvedenko had a breakthrough season after power forward Karl Malone, inducted in the 2010 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, faced an injury midway through the season.
Medvedenko became a starter and averaged 10 points per game. That season, the team reached the NBA finals, losing in five games to the Detroit Pistons. However, Medvedenko himself was struck by injuries, forcing him to miss the entire 2005-2006 season.
One year later, Medvedenko retired and returned to Ukraine.
Back home, he took on a number of coaching jobs most notably being part of the coaching staff of Ukraine’s national basketball team under renowned NBA coach Mike Fratello from 2011 until 2014.
Giving back to the community
The retired baller is the face of a small non-profit organization Mykilska-Slobidka which represents the residents of the Kyiv neighborhood of the same name in the left-bank part of the city. Medvedenko has been living in the neighborhood for nearly 15 years, ever since he returned to Ukraine after quitting professional basketball.
The non-profit is entrenched in multiple legal battles against construction moguls who are building housing in the neighborhood and violating the law and city-building norms in the process, according to the activists.
Among the construction companies fought by Medvedenko’s organization in court is the recently bankrupt UkrBud Development, a company owned by former lawmaker Maksym Mykytas, now under arrest as a suspect in several investigations.
Mykytas was allegedly a friend of Mayor Vitali Klitschko. Ukrainian journalists of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty spotted them travelling together on a private jet in 2017, with Mykytas giving Klitschko a ride. Klitschko later claimed he paid for his share of the flight.
NBA champion Stanyslav Medvedenko, now a candidate running for the Kyiv city council, speaks with the Kyiv Post on Sept. 25, 2020 in Kyiv. (Volodymyr Petrov)
In the Mykilska-Slobidka neighborhood, Mykytas’ UkrBud Development completed two skyscrapers near the Dnipro River in what many view a violation of the law.
Construction within 100 meters to major rivers is banned according to Ukrainian law, and Ukrbud’s buildings were built 50 meters from Dnipro, Ukraine’s largest river. Yet UkrBud Development was able to prove in court that their project is built next to a minor affluent of Dnipro.
“It’s an accomplishment of our organization that we stopped further construction projects,” says Medvedenko.
“There would have been not two, but 10 buildings,” he adds. “Everything you see here would’ve been gone.”
Instead of the planned skyscrapers, today there is a basketball court, a skatepark and a recreation zone built by the Mykilska-Slobidka non-profit with the help of Medvedenko.
In 2015, Medvedenko helped raise money for the organization by organizing an auction, selling a signed Kobe Bryant jersey and two front-row tickets for a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game.
“(A famous Kyiv developer) Garik Korogodsky bought the lot for $30,000 and we built the basketball court,” says Medvedenko.
Second shot in politics
The upcoming Kyiv local elections will be a second shot at politics for Medvedenko.
The former basketball champion ran an unsuccessful campaign during the 2019 parliamentary election. He came ninth in his native election district.
“It was a rehearsal,” says Medvedenko, adding that he was recommended to run as an independent to see the election process from within.
In 2020, Medvedenko has partnered with the Voice party, led in Kyiv by comedian Serhiy Prytula. On the national level, the party has 19 seats in the 450-member parliament and is in opposition to President Volodymyr Zelensky and his 246-member Servant of the People party.
In Kyiv, the party is supported by 7 percent of the voters, according to the most recent Rating Group poll. The threshold for the Kyiv Council is five percent. The party’s mayoral candidate Prytula has a small chance of winning the race – his support doesn’t exceed 10 percent.
Yet, for Medvedenko the choice was obvious – he believes in the project.
“The Voice party served as a platform for a lot of local non-profits to unite their efforts (in the Kyiv council),” says Medvedenko.
Medvedenko adds that the Voice party wasn’t involved in any political scandals.
“I believe in the Voice,” he says.
Medvedenko says he was offered a leading spot in the pro-Russian Opposition Platform – For Life party, yet he declined the offer.
“For me, a democratic pro-Western party is a must,” he adds.
Speaking about his plans if elected, Medvedenko says he is ready to cooperate with all pro-Western parties if they are willing to stop illegal construction in Kyiv and support his non-profit’s initiatives.
Among the initiatives pushed by Medvedenko’s non-profit is a new park on the banks of the Dnipro River and the creation of a community center where kids can play sports, learn English and spend their free time.
“It should be a place where the local community bonds together,” says Medvedenko.
“Ideally there should be at least 10 educational community centers to influence the younger generation,” he adds.
Athletes and politics in Ukraine
Medvedenko is one of many Ukrainian athletes that decided to dive into politics after retirement. However, the experience of most athletes is usually sour.
Soccer star Andriy Shevchenko, the world’s best player in 2004, was part of the pro-Russian Ukraine – Forward political party led by Natalia Korolevska. The party didn’t make it into parliament. Another soccer star Oleh Blokhin, the world’s best player in 1975, was elected to parliament twice — once on the ticket of the Hromada party led by later convicted Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, and later on the ticket of Ukraine’s Communist Party, banned by law in 2015.
Moreover, 2004 Olympic champion wrestler Elbrus Tedeyev and basketball star Oleh Volkov joined the pro-Russian Party of Regions of later ousted President Viktor Yanukovych and voted for the so-called dictator laws which supported the crackdown on protesters during the EuroMaidan Revolution.
One famous Ukrainian former athlete that has been remarkably successful in politics is Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, once a heavyweight boxing champion. After six years as mayor of Kyiv, Klitschko is likely to be re-elected for the second term.
Medvedenko says that famous athletes that have a following should express their political views and to lead public opinion.
“Athletes should be moral influencers,” says Medvedenko. He adds that because athletes are more recognizable, their bad decisions are easier to spot.
“My decision to take part in politics is a weighted approach,” says Medvedenko, “it’s an opportunity to do something good for the city.”
However, Medvedenko agrees that Ukrainian athletes are less vocal on social matters than their American counterparts.
American basketball icon Lebron James has been one of many NBA stars tacking a stance on social issues such as police violence, inequality, and education.
In 2018, the Lebron James Family Foundation opened a school in his hometown Akron, Ohio. School graduates are provided with tuition-free education at the University of Akron. James has also been a key voice in the Black Lives Matter movement protesting police violence against black Americans.
“We’re not there yet,” says Medvedenko.
According to Medvedenko, in Ukraine, where athletes are heavily dependant on either the state or the oligarchs for money, they are forced to toe in line with their patron’s interests or abstain from making any socio-political comments.
“(Most) athletes (in Ukraine) choose a very convenient position saying that they are not interested in politics,” says Medvedenko.
“It’s not only the athletes, it’s our whole society,” he adds. “Athletes are a representation of our society and it’s a common problem: people don’t want to get involved.”
