After leaving home at age 11 Dzanan Musa is on the cusp of achieving his childhood dream

Dzanan Musa was just 11 years old when he left his hometown of Bihać, a quaint 60,000-person city situated in the northwest corner of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and traveled five hours to the country’s capital Sarajevo. But this wasn’t a class trip or family vacation like most kids his age would be accustomed to.

Musa was chasing his basketball dream. He enrolled in KK Koš, an academy where he knew no one and lived in an apartment by himself. He practiced three times a day and lived, ate and slept basketball.

“It was a hard time for me and my parents and my brother, but we got over it because we love basketball and we have such a passion for basketball,” Musa said following his workout with the Nuggets on Wednesday.  “… I was crying for three or four months all day, before the practices, after the practices, at night especially because you feel alone.”