The club was founded in 1945 as KK Metalac. In 1950, the club changed its name to KK BSK, and then in 1958 to OKK Beograd, which it keeps to this day.[1] The OKK Beograd squads have won 4 National League championships. They have played three different National League since 1945, including the Yugoslav First Federal League (1945–1992), the First League of Serbia and Montenegro (1992–2006), and the Serbian League (2006 onward). They have also won 3 National Cup titles.
OKK Beograd made most of its achievements during a so-called 'golden era' - a period between 1957 and 1965. The key players of this generation were Radivoj Korać, Slobodan Gordić, Bogomir Rajković, Trajko Rajković, Miodrag Nikolić and Milorad Erkić who would later be the coach of the women's squad, and longtime coordinator of the OKK youth program. They developed under the guidance of coaches Borislav Stanković and Aleksandar Nikolić and team director Radomir Šaper, and went on to win six national trophies and achieve high results in European competitions. In less than a decade, OKK Beograd won four Yugoslav League championships; in 1958, 1960, 1963 and 1964, accompanied by two Yugoslav Cups in 1960 and 1962. The club also reached the semifinals of a European Champions Cup on three occasions, but failed to reach the finals, losing to Academic Sofia in 1959, Spartak Brno in 1964 and Real Madrid in 1965. After 1965, the core of the team went abroad and the results dropped. However, the club did reach the finals of the first-ever Korać Cup in 1972 but lost to another Yugoslav club, Cibona (known at the time as Lokomotiva). Although OKK Beograd remained among the top Serbian and Yugoslav teams, the next trophy was not won until 1993, with the victory in the Yugoslav Cup.
