DRAZEN PETROVIC - 101 Greats of European Basketball

Drazen
Petrovic
259

An unfinished
symphony
It was in the fall of 1979 when I heard the name of
Drazen Petrovic for the first time. The one who uttered
it, before a group of journalists at a game in
Belgrade, was Zoran “Moka” Slavnic, who by then
was a player-coach at Sibenka. “In Sibenik there
is a kid who will be better than me or Dragan Kicanovic,”
Slavnic said. “He is a natural-born talent and
he also has a great work ethic. He is very ambitious
and does unbelievable things. His name is Drazen
Petrovic. Remember this name.”
And I did remember. Some months later, in a game on
December 29, 1979, between Sibenka and OOK Belgrade,
Drazen Petrovic scored his first points in the Yugoslav
first division. Slavnic had left the court and substituted
himself with the kid who would become a legend. With his
first basket, Petrovic showed his character to everyone.
He crossed the paint, found 2.01-meter big man Rajko
Zizic in the way, and with a combination of courage and
easiness – the virtues of the greats – Petrovic dropped a
hook shot. He was 15 years, 2 months and 7 days old.
At the 1981 European Championship for Cadets in
Greece, despite being part of a strong class of players
– Velimir Perasovic, Stojan Vrankovic, Zoran Sretenovic,
Sasa Radunovic and others – Drazen was already the
undisputed leader. There was no TV at the tournament,
but we could follow his records through the press: 31
points against Finland, 41 against Spain, 42 against
Israel, 37 against France and 43 against Greece. He totaled
227 points, averaging 32.5. A star was born.
That was the launch of a brilliant career that, unfortunately,
lasted for just 14 years. On June 7, 1993, a car
accident on a German highway put an end to the life of
a great basketball player. Petrovic was only 28 years old
and still had many brilliant seasons ahead of him. As a
matter of fact, the 1992-93 season had been his best in
the NBA, as he played 70 games with the New Jersey
Nets, averaging 22.3 points and securing a spot on the
All-NBA team. That season he also had great numbers
from beyond the arc – 75 of 167 for an accuracy of 45%.
He was about to sign a new contract.
His job: winner
His talent exploded in the 1981-82 season, which he
finished with a 16.3-point scoring average in the Yugoslav
League. The next season, he went on to become the
clear leader of Sibenka, with an average of 24.5 points.
Unfortunately, that great 1982-83 season finished with
a scandal in the finals between Sibenka and Bosna. The
third and final game of the series was played at Sibenka,
the regular season champion. In the final minutes,
and after losing a 19-point advantage because of Drazen’s
scoring, Bosna was only one point ahead, 82-81,
and the last possession was for the hosts. With 2 seconds
to go, young Petrovic got the ball, pulled up and
... missed the shot. The end? No, because the referee
called a foul on Sabit Hadzic, sending Drazen to the foul
line. With the roar of the crowd in the stands and after
a long timeout, Petrovic, as the champion that he was,
hit both attempts to give himself 40 points and win the
game, 83-82. The champion received his trophy and
the city of Sibenik celebrated all night long.
Early the next morning, an emergency meeting of
the executive body of the basketball federation concluded
that, due to a “the clear mistake by the referee,”
101 greats of european basketball
Drazen Petrovic
P

Vladimir Stankovic
the final result was nullified and the game had to be
replayed one week later on neutral ground in the city
of Novi Sad. It was one o’clock in the afternoon and the
Petrovic family still had not awoken from the previous
long night when I told them the bad news. First, I told
Biserka, and after her, Drazen. His answer was fast and
sure: “I am not going to Novi Sad, and I don’t think the
rest of the team will either. We are the champions and
nobody will take this title away from us. “
Said and done. Sibenka never appeared in Novi Sad
and Bosna was declared champion without even playing
the game.
The coach of Sibenka those days, Vlado Djurovic, explained
Petrovic’s winning character some years later
when he told me some details about that famous final.
“During the timeout before the free throws, I begged
Drazen to score only the first one and miss the second
so that we could play overtime. We had the feeling that
there would be trouble, and we were convinced that
we would win easily in the extra period. But no. Drazen
didn’t want to miss a free throw on purpose.”
With Sibenka, Petrovic lost two Korac Cup finals,
both against the same rival, Limoges of France. My
guess is that he wanted revenge on the French team
and that’s why on January 23, 1986, in a Cibona vs.
Limoges game in the EuroLeague, he did everything he
could. In minute 13, with a score of 43-27, things looked
bad for Cibona, but then Drazen had one of his unforgettable
moments. He scored 7 straight three-pointers
on 7 straight possessions! Cibona ended up winning,
116-106. Drazen finished with 51 points after shooting
70% from the field, but he also had 10 assists.
Drazen’s Cibona team won the EuroLeague twice
and then also won a Saporta Cup. Every home game he
played drew 12,000 fans. Those were the years when
my Italian colleague Enrico Campana, from La Gazzetta
dello Sport, called him “Mozart” for the first time. Soon
after, Drazen gave his café-bar in the Cibona arena the
name “Amadeus”.
Collector of records
In 1988, after the Olympic Games in Seoul, Petrovic’s
cycle in the former Yugoslavia came to an end after 197
games with Sibenka and Cibona. He had combined for
5,113 points between them, an average of 26.0 points
per game. Drazen was searching for new challenges
and Real Madrid of Spain became his destination. He
played a great season with impressive numbers (28.2
points in 36 regular-season and 11 playoff games). But
one of his best games ever came in the final of the Saporta
Cup in Athens, against Snaidero Caserta of Italy.
He scored 62 points to win a direct duel with Oscar
Schmidt, one of the best shooters ever in world basketball.
Drazen’s personal scoring record was 112 points
for Cibona against Olimpija Ljubljana, even though it’s
worth noting that Olimpija was sanctioned to play that
game with junior players.
I was a witness to Petrovic’s debut with the Yugoslav
senior national team at the 1983 EuroBasket in Limoges
and Nantes, France. He was the youngest player on
the team. On one side, there were legends in the sunset
of their careers – Kresimir Cosic, Dragan Kicanovic or
erstwhile coach, Slavnic – and on the other Drazen, the
new star. His debut did not end very happily because
Yugoslavia finished seventh. The following year, at the
1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Yugoslavia won the bronze
medal after having lost to Spain in semis. It was his first
big trophy if we ignore the “lost” league title of 1983.
At the 1986 World Cup in Spain, where Yugoslavia
won the bronze medal, Petrovic was already an
260
261

international star. It was the same as at the 1987
EuroBasket in Athens (bronze) or the 1988 Olympics
(silver). Finally, the gold arrived at the 1989 EuroBasket
in Zagreb, on the court where he had starred from
1984 to 1988, winning everything that could be won
with Cibona. His EuroBasket scoring average was 30
points. The following year, at the 1990 World Cup in
Buenos Aires, he won the gold again – and it would be
his last one. Drazen had landed at the tournament as
an NBA player already, after a not-so-happy debut with
the Portland Trail Blazers, where coach Rick Adelman
never trusted him.
After seven years with the Yugoslav national team,
Petrovic had played 135 games and had scored 2,830
points. Ahead of him, with many more games played,
were only Drazen Dalipagic, Dragan Kicanovic, Kresimir
Cosic and Radivoj Korac. But if we add up all Petrovic’s
points in all categories of the national team, Drazen is
the top scorer with 3,979 points. His 47 points against
the Netherlands in Spain in 1986 are still his best individual
mark. He scored more than 30 points 27 times
and more than 20 points 75 times. Of his 135 games
with the national team, he was the top scorer on 79
occasions. He was a truly relentless scoring machine.
Starting in 1992, he played a total of 40 games for
the Croatian national team and scored 1,004 points
(25.1 per game). He won the silver medal at the 1992
Olympics in Barcelona, a great prize for him and his
teammates.
Legacy left too early
His last game with the Croatian team was in Wroclaw,
Poland, on June 6, 1993, in a qualifying tournament for
EuroBasket in Germany later that summer. There he
scored his last 30 points, against Slovenia. The following
day, destiny led Petrovic to make a fateful decision.
Instead of going back to Zagreb with his teammates, he
decided to spend a couple days off in Germany with a
friend, where he died in that tragic car crash.
What kind of person was Drazen Petrovic? I would
say that there were two personalities inside him. On the
court, he was a lion who didn’t fear anything or anyone.
But in his private life he was quiet, well-mannered and
kind. Basketball was his life. Maybe he took practices
too far, but that made him happy. Coaches helped him
with the technical work, but most of what he accomplished,
he did on his own. When it was time to practice,
he never seemed to get enough. Starting in his junior
years in Sibenik, he maintained an unbelievable pace.
He arrived at 7 in the morning, before going to school,
taking several hundred free throws every day.
What kind of player was Drazen Petrovic? He was an
individualist, great at going one-on-one, with a perfect
shot, speed and strength, especially in his final NBA
years. He played primarily as a playmaker and did so
very well, even though he preferred being the shooting
guard. He was the classic killer who could almost beat
a team by himself. Was he also arrogant, egocentric
and selfish? Maybe in some moments, but only when
the game called for it and the atmosphere made him
take flight. But if we take a look at his number of assists,
especially with the national teams, we find another Drazen,
the one who made the Toni Kukoc observation a
reality: “A basket makes one player happy, but an assist
makes two players happy.” Petrovic brought happiness
to all basketball lovers with his game. His way of understanding
life was apparently – only apparently – simple:
“Today, I want to improve more than yesterday, but less
than tomorrow.”
And he did so, until that tragic day of June 7, 1993.
101 greats of european basketball
Drazen Petrovic
P