Getting Danilović and his parents to agree to a move to Belgrade proved to be the easy part; the real challenge was getting his club KK Bosna to sign off on the transfer.

Also, Bosna club president Mirza Delibašić and Partizan vice-president Dragan Kićanović were close friends going back to their playing days, so that created additional awkwardness and the whole thing dragged out for a while".

[1][4] Since Bosna didn't want to let him go, by the summer of '86 Danilović and Partizan decided to act unilaterally to move the player to Belgrade, knowing full well he'd have to sit out a year before taking part in official competitions.

The move marked the beginning of a long friendship and professional association between Danilović and Vujošević, with the twenty-eight-year-old coach initially acting as a mentor to the sixteen-year-old player.

By December 1986 Vujošević had moved up in the Partizan club hierarchy, becoming head coach in place of the fired Vladislav Lučić while young Danilović trained by himself and with the first team.

Furthermore, in accordance with his parents' wishes, the club ensured he also pursued his full-time secondary education by getting enrolled in the streamlined Petar Drapšin Technical High School.

[5] His living arrangements also changed; the club moved him to Hotel Putnik in New Belgrade for a short time before eventually putting him up in an apartment in Blok 45 that he shared with Popović.

In summer 1988, Danilović was included in the Yugoslavia under-18 national team that competed at the European Championship for Juniors on home soil in Titov Vrbas and Srbobran.

Coached by his mentor Vujošević and playing alongside promising Yugoslav juniors Arijan Komazec, Žan Tabak, Rastko Cvetković, etc., Danilović led the team to the gold medal.

Starting small forward Goran Grbović (who often also played the shooting guard position) left the club for Oximesa that summer, opening up space for the incoming Danilović.

[7] Partizan finished the regular season in first place with a 16–6 record, the same as Jugoplastika, but with a better point differential, meaning the Belgrade club would have home-court advantage in the playoffs.

Back on the domestic league front, in the playoff semi-final, Partizan easily eliminated crosstown rivals Crvena Zvezda, setting up the finals rematch with Jugoplastika of the EuroLeague in which they had just triumphed.

A testament to his brilliant debut season, in the summer of 1989 Danilović got called up for the Yugoslav national team training camp by head coach Dušan Ivković ahead of EuroBasket 1989, eventually making the final 12-man squad where he played alongside club teammates Divac and Paspalj.

Coming back to Partizan later that summer, the roster went through major changes as both Divac and Paspalj left after signing NBA contracts, with the Lakers and Spurs, respectively, point guard Đorđević served out his mandatory Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) stint thus missing most of the season,[9] and head coach Vujošević left for Spanish club Oximesa from Granada, taking veteran center Savović with him.

It wasn't much better for Danilović individually, either: after steadily improving performanced started the season off strongly, he suffered an season-ending broken leg after only 11 games,[6] posting 14.3ppg.

[6] Meanwhile, the team went through significant changes with head coach Ćorković let go and eventually replaced by Danilović's mentor Vujošević who thus returned to the club after a largely unsuccessful episode in Spain.

Coached by Ettore Messina and playing alongside point guard Roberto Brunamonti and a center line of Bill Wennington and Augusto Binelli,[10] Danilović led the team to the top of the standings in the regular season with a 24–6 record, ahead of former teammate Saša Đorđević's Philips Milano and reigning league champions Benetton Treviso, led by Toni Kukoč, before sweeping through the playoffs without a single loss, overcoming Olimpia Pistoia, Clear Cantù, and finally Kukoč's Treviso in the playoff final series to win the Italian League title in impressive style.

Rattled by playing in an extremely hostile atmosphere, Danilović had a poor shooting night making 5 of 15 field goals, good for only 12 points as Virtus lost by 16.

Even their player Franjo Arapović as well as their head coach Aco Petrović were hostile before the game even started wanting to hurl abuse at me, but I managed to put them in their place once we got out on the court.

With Danilović's contributions to the success of Virtus, he, together with his agent Luciano Capicchioni, also began looking at the NBA as an option again,[12] but eventually decided to stay put with Bologna, at least for the immediate future.

In December 1993, approximately midway through the season, Virtus moved into its newly built 8,650-seat arena PalaMalaguti (which now seats 11,000), located outside of the city centre in Casalecchio di Reno.

[13] To accommodate signing Danilović, the Heat decided to trade Harold Miner to Cleveland in exchange for second-round draft picks and future considerations, thus freeing up space under NBA's salary cap.

[13] Several months later, one day before the scheduled start of the regular season, Miami pulled off a blockbuster trade with the Charlotte Hornets, sending the Heat's franchise player Glen Rice along with starting center Matt Geiger and point guard Khalid Reeves to the Hornets in exchange for their star player Alonzo Mourning, along with reserves Pete Myers and LeRon Ellis.

Danilović debuted for the Heat on Saturday, November 4, 1995, the opening day of the season, as a starter at the shooting guard position alongside Bimbo Coles, Billy Owens, Kevin Willis, and Alonzo Mourning.

[32] The following season, Virtus won its 7th Italian Cup but lost in the EuroLeague final against Žalgiris of Tyus Edney and was eliminated in the semi-finals for the national championship.

[36] The appointment came about on initiative by the club's about to be deposed president Ivica Dačić during the time of political upheaval in Serbia in the wake of the Slobodan Milošević overthrow.

In late May 2007, following a Serbian Basketball League game from the SuperLeague phase, between KK Hemofarm and Partizan at Vršac's Millennium Centar, Danilović assaulted the referee Marko Juras.

[40] In July 2007, Danilović got suspended by the Serbian Basketball Federation (KSS) from all basketball-related activity for two years,[41] but two months later the punishment was reduced to a probationary period.

[58] Danilović was released from the hospital on May 26, 2013[59] and was then seen in public at the Belgrade Airport awaiting the arrival of Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović, who had been acquitted at the Hague Tribunal.

[67] Having already spent nine months in prison detention, Filipović was released on the same occasion thus awaiting the sentence becoming legally-binding upon the completion of the appeals process for him to commence his jail time.