3×3 Basketball Is a New Sport, but It Already Has a G.O.A.T.

“As we say over here, he’s a dog,” said Kyle Montgomery, a commentator from Los Angeles. “A dog is someone who’s got heart, a guy who’s relentless, a guy who likes to seize the moment. He plays with pride. He’s a winner.”

After the initial spark of “White Men Can’t Jump,” Bulut began following the careers of players like Stephon Marbury and Allen Iverson. He read Slam and Dime Magazine whenever he could get his hands on a copy. He spent hours watching clips of the AND1 Mixtape Tour.

He took in these influences and expressed them anew on the courts outside his apartment. Everyone hung out there — “moms with kids, alcoholics and drug addicts, nerds” — and the easiest way to grab people’s attention, to earn their respect, was to unveil a fancy move or flashy pass.

Those instincts did not serve Bulut as well when he began his professional career as a five-on-five player, bouncing around teams in Serbia, Hungary, Bosnia and Macedonia. He disliked the schedule, a numbing stream of anonymous cities and villages, and bristled against his coaches’ suffocating systems.

As a release, he focused more of his energy toward playing in three-on-three tournaments, and everything clicked. As he and his teammates watched the prize money accumulate and sponsorship opportunities start to materialize, they began devoting themselves to the game full time. FIBA’s marketing materials regularly refer to Bulut as the G.O.A.T. — the greatest of all time.

“He’s a great example, and his team, that if you put every effort and every bit of time into 3×3, you can have a phenomenal career with it,” said Michael Linklater, a former player from Canada who will provide commentary on the Olympics this month for the national broadcaster CBC. “They have their own facility. They train other teams. They’ve kind of figured out how to play the game.”

Bulut pointed out that most of the players involved with the Serbian national team were from the Novi Sad area. Their humble beginnings and hardscrabble environs had remained a motivating force, he said.