DRAZEN PETROVIC

Dražen Petrović was a Yugoslav and Croatian professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he initially achieved success playing professional basketball in Europe in the 1980s before joining the American NBA in 1989. Petrović's life and career were cut short by a car accident in Germany when he was 28.

At the age of thirteen, Petrović started playing in the youth selections of the local BC Šibenka; at the age of fifteen he had already made the first team, just as Šibenka earned a place in the national first division. With young Petrović as the star of the team, Šibenka reached the final of the Radivoj Korać Cup twice (1982 and 1983), losing to CSP Limoges both times. In 1983 the 18 year-old Petrović hit two free throws for Šibenka's victory over BC Bosna Sarajevo in the final playoff game of the Yugoslavian club championship, but the title was taken away from Šibenka the next day by the national basketball federation with irregularities in refereeing cited as the reason, and awarded to Bosna after Šibenka refused to show up for the repeat match.

A star on multiple stages, Petrović earned two silver medals and one bronze in Olympic basketball, a gold and a bronze in the FIBA World Championship, a gold and a bronze in the FIBA European Championship, earned six European Player of the Year awards (four Euroscar Awards, and was named Mr. Europa in basketball twice). In 1985 he received the golden badge award for best athlete of Yugoslavia.

Seeking a bigger arena after his career start in Europe, Petrović joined the NBA in 1989 as a member of the Portland Trail Blazers. After playing mostly off the bench that year, Petrović experienced a break-out following a trade to the New Jersey Nets. While starting for the Nets, he became one of the league's best shooting guards.

Petrović is considered the crucial part of the vanguard to the present-day mass influx of European players into the NBA. Petrović's #3 was retired by the Nets in 1993 and in 2002, he was posthumously enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

The 2010 documentary Once Brothers (part of the ESPN 30 for 30 series) portrays the achievements of the Yugoslavia national basketball team in the late 1980s and early 1990s and how the Yugoslav Wars tore the team apart. It explores Petrović's broken friendship with Serbian/Yugoslav player Vlade Divac.