His domestic career took off when, at 17, he was noticed by Krešimir Ćosić at a friendly youth tournament that featured Mašinac and Zadar among others, where Bodiroga scored 32 points in a game that pitted two teams.
In the meantime Bodiroga signed a pre-contract with Vojvodina so that when he finally went to Zadar in autumn 1989 he wasn't right away eligible for the first team, meaning that he first worked with coach Josip Grdović in the club's youth sections while simultaneously attending high school.
[11] Originally, trials were arranged with AEK and Olympiacos, with both clubs offering a contract solely on the condition that Bodiroga become a naturalised Greek citizen.
Trieste also reached the FIBA Korać Cup final, where they surrendered to PAOK from Thessaloniki, who starred Zoran Savić, Walter Berry and Bane Prelević.
On the home front, the team made it to the playoff semi-finals but lost 3–2 to the eventual champions, Buckler Bologna, led by another Serbian superstar, Predrag Danilović.
Together, they won the gold in one of the most spectacular finals in EuroBasket history against a Lithuania that featured the likes of Arvydas Sabonis, Šarūnas Marčiulionis, Rimas Kurtinaitis, and Artūras Karnišovas.
During the playoffs, they beat Virtus 3–1 in the semi-finals (Danilovic left for the Miami Heat in the summer), and Teamsystem Bologna led by Myers, Đorđević and Alessandro Frosini.
In the Spanish ACB League finals, they faced an FC Barcelona team that boasted Aleksandar Đorđević, Jerrod Mustaf, and Artūras Karnišovas.
On the national basketball front, Yugoslavia rolled over the competition with considerable ease en route to another EuroBasket gold in 1997, with Bodiroga again playing an integral role.
The game carried much political tension and was low-scoring, with Đorđević winning it for FR Yugoslavia (by then comprising only Serbia and Montenegro) with a dramatic 3-pointer at the end.
In Bodiroga's next and final season with Real Madrid, (and without Obradovic, who had moved to Benetton Treviso) there were no improvements, as the team was ousted in the league's semifinals by TDK Manresa.
The same summer of 1998 also saw Bodiroga move to the Greek powerhouse Panathinaikos, where club chairman Pavlos Giannakopoulos began assembling a team to conquer Europe.
As such, Bodiroga was the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle that already included Dino Rađa, Fragiskos Alvertis, Michael Koch, "Nando" Gentile, Pat Burke and coach Slobodan Subotić.
A year later, Bodiroga was named the EuroLeague Final Four MVP, as the Greeks beat hosts Kinder Bologna, and their star player Manu Ginóbili 89–83.
In the international front, Bodiroga, as the team's undisputed leader, helped FR Yugoslavia win the EuroBasket 2001 in Turkey and the 2002 FIBA World Championship in Indianapolis.
In the summer of 2002, Bodiroga returned to the Spanish league's FC Barcelona, which was managed by Svetislav Pešić and had players like Šarūnas Jasikevičius, Gregor Fučka and Juan Carlos Navarro.
[citation needed] In the 2005–06 season, Bodiroga came back to the Italian League, this time with Lottomatica Roma, re-joining coach Pešić, as the team played in the ULEB Cup (now called EuroCup).
After getting eliminated from European contention in the round of 16 and losing the Italian Cup final (83–85) to Carpisa Napoli, Virtus finished the season in 6th place with a 22–12 record in the national league.
[13] He was also a regular member of the senior FR Yugoslavia national team, throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, participating in a total of three Summer Olympics (1996, 2000, 2004,[14]) two FIBA World Cups (1998 and 2002) and five EuroBaskets (1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, and 2005).
In April 2010, Bodiroga along with fellow former player Željko Rebrača sued the Carmel, Indiana-based company Worldwide Associates LLC for investment fraud.
[13] His father hails from the village of Bodiroge near Trebinje and was among the wave of migrants from Herzegovina that moved northwards following the devastations of World War II.