Dragan Labović

Labović won the gold medal at the 2003 FIBA Europe Under-16 Championship and the 2005 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship. He was MVP at 2005 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship. He was part of the younger generation in the national teams did not lose a single match at official matches, and there he was one of the best players in that generation with Milenko Tepić and Miloš Teodosić.

Labović made the Serbian national basketball team under head coach Moka Slavnić for the EuroBasket 2007.

Controversial 2012 press release about Dušan Ivković

During summer 2012, head coach Dušan Ivković included Labović on the preliminary list of players for the EuroBasket 2013 qualifying, but the 25-year-old power forward who had spent the preceding club season with BC Krasnye Krylia from Samara didn't make the final cut.

Commenting his decision to exclude Labović, Ivković reportedly stated that "Labović has been having issues with his weight as he recently became a father and probably celebrated a little too much".

Stung by Ivković's comment, Labović responded months later, in September 2012, by putting out a bitter, somewhat cryptic, and highly unusual press release published by Serbian sports media outlets. Though Ivković's comments had been made months earlier, Labović's press release came following the completion of the EuroBasket qualifying cycle in which Serbia barely qualified on basket difference despite being in what most considered to be an easy qualifying group alongside Montenegro, Israel, Estonia, Iceland, and Slovakia.

In the release, Labović criticizes 68-year-old Ivković's professional integrity and coaching skills, accusing the famous coach of letting his agent Miško Ražnatović of the BeoBasket agency exert an undue influence when it comes to squad selection for the national team. Among other things, addressing Ivković directly, Labović said:

Mr. Ivković, I'd like to remind everyone of the year 2008 when I was the Adriatic League leading scorer and the MVP of every competition possible, all of which wasn't enough to make your national squad that had been put together by a certain managerial agency. That year, 2008, your team selection raised the transfer market price for a lot of players that never deserved it, while lowering mine considerably. Ninety percent of the players that participated in that qualifying cycle soon made millions as a result of the exposure received through the national team. I later did too, thank God, despite not being in the national team, despite being ignored by that managerial agency, and despite your phone calls around Europe to give instructions how players should play...... I don't think you're much of a coach. In fact I don't think you're a coach at all. You're more of a basketball philosopher. You won two Euroleagues, spending €970 million in the process.... I'm not playing for Real or Barcelona, but over the last three years I've got more basketball action in my legs than 80% of your national squad. While you're heading that team, nothing will change—Teodosić will always be hogging the ball before passing to Krle and that's the entire game plan. The rest of the players might as well be mascots cheering on the sidelines, which is the same role they have in their clubs. I suggest you consider a quiet life in retirement. I, for my part, will still be fat, playing 25-30 minutes per game, and making money despite not getting your endorsement.[20]

A few weeks after his press release, Labović's club BC Nizhny Novgorod led by a Serbian head coach Zoran Lukić, reprimanded the player although his punishment was not specified.[21]