101 Greats of European Basketball

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
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