101 Greats of European Basketball

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
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