Ukić was born and raised in Split, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia, where he began playing basketball for the youth clubs of KK Split in 1992. He competed on cadet and junior teams for the club, winning the national youth championship twice with the cadet team, and earning the MVP award of the Croat cadet championship in 2000. Ukić joined the club\'s senior team, KK Split, in 2000, at the age of 16. He scored his first professional points on October 14, 2000, as his Split Croatia Insurance team won the game against KK Šibenik (93:79). Ukić finished the game with five points.\n', '

At the age of 17, Ukić was already the team\'s captain. During his five years with the club, he won the Croatian League championship in 2003, and the Croatian Cup in 2004. In the Croatian Cup final against KK Zadar, Ukić scored the winning buzzer beater. Ukić played for Split until 2005, when he was drafted by the NBA\'s Toronto Raptors in the second round, with the 41st pick overall, after averaging 18.5 points and 4.3 assists, in 35.2 minutes per game, for Split in the Adriatic League.\n', '

Rather than risk being buried on the bench as a reserve player in the NBA, he opted to join Tau Cerámica of the Spanish ACB League, a team that had an open spot at the backup point guard position in 2005. In his first season in a foreign league, Ukić became the first Croatian player to win the Spanish ACB League\'s Player of the week award. He got the award after scoring 27 points against CB Valladolid. Ukić won the Spanish Cup 2006, and played in the Spanish ACB League Playoffs, where his team eventually lost to Unicaja Malaga in the finals, by a 3–0 series score.\n', '

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