NBA: Drazen Petrovic: The Mozart of Basketball

Drazen Petrovic is still considered one of the best shooting guides of all time. He was a pioneer in the NBA and superstar in his country. When he stands at the height of his work, a tragic accident ends his life. But he remains a legend of sport. Today Petrovic would have turned 53 years old.

“Drazen Petrovic is the best shooter I’ve seen in my whole life.””Better than Ray Allen?””The best shooter I’ve ever seen in my life.”

These words are not from just anyone, but from no one less than Reggie Miller, one of the best shooters in the NBA. So he should know what he is talking about when he holds such hymns of praise for a player.

Petrovic is still considered one of the best shooting guards of all time. The tragic accident that took place on the A9 motorway near Ingolstadt in June 1993 did not lead to this tragic accident, which ended early in his life.

Drazen Petrovic will attend the 22. Born in Sibenik in October 1964, he started to play basketball from a young age. With his home club, the KK Sibenik, in the first Yugoslav league, he is developing at a breakneck pace, playing against much older pros at the age of 15 and in the Yugoslav national team.

In Sibenik, he had the keys to the hall in Sibenik,”he said,” He had the same qualities that will accompany him throughout his entire career: hard work and untiring enthusiasm for training. He got up at six o’ clock in the morning and always wanted to train alone. He put up chairs and flipped them over. Every day he’d hang on to the door because he wanted to get bigger. He kept jumping through the house, wanted to play every day and get better. He only had basketball in his head,”says Petrovic’s mother of his obsession.

But his regular club soon becomes too small for him. After one year of military service, the wing player moved to Cibona Zagreb in 1985, where he finally became a superstar. In four years at Zagreb, he reaches a point average of 37.7. In one game, he scores 112 points for a league opponent. He scored 44 points against Real Madrid in his first European match.

He is soon called “The Mozart of Basketball” because he celebrates his playing just as much as the composer of the music. Petrovic leads Cibona twice to the European Cup of National Championships, as well as to several national championships and cups. With his will to win, he becomes the idol of a whole country:”If Drazen can do it, you can do it, too”.

In the summer of 1988, together with Dino Radja, Toni Kukoc and Vlade Divac, he formed the core of the national team, which is to shape basketball events at the national level for years to come. The almost manic obsession is also noticeable to the other players. Petrovic’s quality characteristic is also a weakness:”He can never rest,” he said,”The only thing you could talk to Drazen about was basketball. When we wanted to talk about music or anything else, he kept coming back to basketball. His life was basketball,”says Kukoc about his teammate.

He shares a room with Divac:”I’ve never seen anyone so focused. We were actually made for each other: He showed me how to achieve something with hard work and I was able to show him how to relax.”

The Portland Trail Blazers secured Petrovic’s services back in 1986. For the shooting guard, however, we will first go to Madrid to see the royalty. Drazen becomes the team leader. In the legendary final of the 1989 European Cup Winners’ Cup, the wing player Saidero Caserta scores 62 points. Opponents and teammates are often equally surprised: Can Drazen Petrovic miss?

He also continues to collect titles with the national team. At the European Championship 1989 in his own country, he and the team play in their own league. The reward is the gold medal. The Yugoslavs win the final against Greece in a superior manner. Petrovic seems to think it’s only going uphill.

1989 followed the step into the NBA to the Portland Trail Blazers. Now he wants to celebrate success on the new continent. Petrovic doesn’t care about the money, he’s just looking for the biggest possible challenge. The harder the competition, the better. At that time, however, European talents in the USA were still viewed with suspicion. Blazers coach Rick Adelman at the time resembles that.

Behind Clyde Drexler and Terry Porter, he hardly sees any playing time. When veteran Danny Ainge joins the team a year later, things get even tougher:”The worst time of his life began because he knew that he could keep up with the best,”reports his brother Alexandrov later.

In response, Petrovic does what he always does when he wants to prove something to the rest of the world: he trains more, even harder.

Page 1: Superstar in Zagreb and the problems in Portland

Page 2: Upswing of the Nets and a tragic accident