I was watching the Utah-Oklahoma NCAA tournament game over the weekend, and one of the announcers mentioned in passing that one of the heroes of Utah’s Andrew Bogut is the late Drazen Petrovic. Bogut, an Australian of Croatian descent picked quite a role model. Croatians might not be able to tell you who their President is, but they certainly remember Drazen Petrovic.
The announcer’s aside sparked some memories of my own, including my visit to Petrovic’ grave in Zagreb’s sprawling Mirogoj Cemetery in 1995, a bit less than two years after the Croatian basketball star and national hero and his girlfriend had been killed in an automobile accident in Germany. My visit was prior to construction of the memorial that now marks Petrovic’ final resting place. Even two years after his death, the collection of candles, flowers, pictures, and heartfelt notes at the gravesite was truly awe-inspiring- as is the story of Drazen Petrovic’ all too short life.
It was November, 1989, and a youngster from a foreign land had fans of the Portland Trailblazers all atwitter. No one really knew a lot about Drazen Petrovic, but we knew that he had really been something impressive playing for club teams in his native Croatia and elsewhere in Europe.
Petrovic quickly became very popular with fans in Portland. During his abbreviated stay in the Rose City, he became a fan favorite, perhaps because he was much more accessible than your average NBA star. Most of the Blazers lived in estates in places like Lake Oswego, but Petrovic lived in a high-rise condominium in downtown Portland and walked most everywhere. It was almost as if he didn’t understand that his stardom and success entitled him to be aloof and inaccessible.
In addition to being very accessible and personable, Petrovic always seemed to have a smile on his face. He was a kid from a small town on the Croatian coast who, through his skills on the basketball court, had transformed himself into a national hero. EVERYONE in Croatia- and that is no exaggeration- knew who Drazen Petrovic was.
As things turned out, playing in Portland was not the happiest time in his life or his basketball career. Petrovic was used to being the Big Dog at whatever level he played at. In European competition, his overwhelming talent allowed him to dominate play and to dictate the outcome of a game more often than not.
Once he made the jump to the NBA, Petrovic discovered that not only were NBA players his peers, they were in many ways superior talents. Living in a foreign country, far from home, he was forced to adapt to a game much different than what he was used to playing in Europe. For the first time in his brilliant career, he was forced to accept a subservient role. In 1989, few in the NBA were convinced that Europeans could adapt to the American game, with it’s different rules and more athletic style.
It took some time for Petrovic to find his niche in the NBA. An energetic sharpshooter with impressive range, his defensive skills could only charitably be described as deficient. Of course, he’d never been expected to play defense in the European game. He was a scorer, and a prolific one at that, so his teams never concerned themselves with his lack of defensive prowess.
At first, his playing time was limited in Portland, because the Trailblazers already had a superstar shooting guard in Clyde Drexler. Petrovic averaged only 12.6 minutes per game in his rookie season, 1989-90- hardly something he’d been accustomed to in Europe. Instead of being a “go-to” guy, he was now a “mop-up” guy.
Petrovic found himself in a frustrating quandary. He could not prove himself without playing time, and yet he couldn’t get the playing time he needed in order to prove himself. In his second season with Portland, his outside shooting finally began to turn some heads, and though his playing time gradually increased, Portland traded him to the New Jersey Nets in December, 1991.
His tenure with the Nets also got off to a slow start, but in time Petrovic worked his way into the starting rotation. Before long he produced one of the highest points-per-minute ration of any NBA player. Finally, things were beginning to look up, and Petrovic was beginning to fit in as a prodictive NBA player.
Unfortunately, the Nets were at that time on the fast lane to nowhere. The new Jersey Nets in the early 90s were the personification of mediocrity, and Drazen Petrovic wasn’t used to being part of an organization that seemed to accept- indeed, embrace- mediocrity.
Petrovic’ 1992-93 season ended when the Nets went out with a whimper in the first round of the playoffs. When the team was slow to renegotiate his contract, he announced that he would probably sign a contract to play in Greece. Then he left for Europe to join the Croatian national team in European Cup competition.
His death was a tragic loss to those who knew him as a friend and as a player. To the small nation of Croatia, Petrovic’ loss was a devastating body blow. Drazen Petrovic was the face of Croatian basketball, a sport which exists on a par with soccer in the small, ex-Communist country.
To get to the grave of Drazen Petrovic, a foreigner would be well-advised to rely on a taxi driver. Mirogoj Cemetery is quite literally larger than the small town that I grew up in in Northern Minnesota. There is a large monument that was built after my visit in 1995, but even the burial site as it existed in early 1995 was an impressive site. My visit came almost two years after Petrovic’ death, and yet his grave was still covered in a carpet of flowers, lighted candles, and notes.
Everywhere I went in Croatia, you could see pictures of Drazen Petrovic. From customs stations at the Zagreb Airport to grocery stores to bakeries to restaurants, his face was everyhere. People still talked about him, two years later, as if he was still alive. In a very real sense, he was and is still alive for most Croatians. When you live in a country with a population smaller than the Houston metropolitan area, your heroes become larger than life, and losing one hits home in a way difficult for Americans to comprehend.
Twelve years later, it is still difficult to mention Croatian basketball with bring up the memory and legacy of Drazen Petrovic- and his legacy is a lasting one. In most countries, you can go to a park and find kids playing soccer. In most of the former Yugoslavia, you will be just as likely to find kids playing basketball on dilapidated courts with no nets on the rims. I can still remember the packed courts outside my hotel room in Ohrid, Macedonia. Many of the kids were wearing either #44, from Petrovic’ days in Portland, or #3, from his final stop in New Jersey. Few, if any, of these kids would ever see the light of day in the NBA, but their love for Drazen Petrovic’ game was difficult to miss.
Not many people are able to make much of an impact in 28 short years. Drazen Petrovic died at a very young age, but he made more of an impact on his small country than he could possibly have imagined a young boy from Sibenik could make. We should all be so blessed.
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