Dražen Petrović

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Dražen Petrović
New Jersey Nets
Career highlights and awards
Career NBA statistics
Points
4,461 (15.4 ppg)
Rebounds669 (2.3 rpg)
Assists701 (2.4 apg)
Stats Edit this at Wikidata at NBA.com
Stats at Basketball-Reference.com
Basketball Hall of Fame as player
FIBA Hall of Fame as player
Medals
Men's basketball
Representing  Yugoslavia
Olympic Games
Bronze medal – third place 1984 Los Angeles Team
Silver medal – second place 1988 Seoul Team
FIBA World Cup
Bronze medal – third place 1986 Spain
Gold medal – first place 1990 Argentina
FIBA EuroBasket
Bronze medal – third place 1987 Greece
Gold medal – first place 1989 Yugoslavia
Universiade
Silver medal – second place 1983 Edmonton
Gold medal – first place 1987 Zagreb
European U18 Championship
Silver medal – second place 1982 Bulgaria Under-18
Representing  Croatia
Olympic Games
Silver medal – second place 1992 Barcelona Team

Dražen Petrović (Croatian pronunciation: [drǎʒen pětroʋitɕ]; 22 October 1964 – 7 June 1993) was a Yugoslav and Croatian professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he initially achieved success playing professional basketball in Europe in the 1980s with Cibona and Real Madrid before joining the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1989.

A star on multiple international basketball stages, Petrović earned two silver medals (

Golden Badge award for the best athlete of Yugoslavia.[1]

Seeking a bigger arena after his career start in Europe, Petrović joined the NBA in 1989, as a member of the

car accident at the age of 28.[2]

In 1993, Petrović's

2013 FIBA EuroBasket.[4]

Petrović is considered a crucial part of the vanguard to the present-day mass influx of European players into the NBA,[5] and to this day he is viewed as a national hero in Croatia.[6][7]

Early years

Born in

Roman Catholic.[11] The couple's eldest child, Aleksandar, was the first to play basketball and rose to become one of the top point guards in former Yugoslavia. The Petrović brothers are second cousins to the Serbian basketball player Dejan Bodiroga.[12][13][14]

Šibenka (1979–1983)

At the age of 13, Petrović started playing in the youth selections of the local club

Bosna Sarajevo in the final playoff game of the Yugoslavian League's 1982–83 season's club championship. However, on the day after the club won the championship, the Basketball Federation of Yugoslavia stripped the title from Šibenka, because of irregularities in refereeing. The league's championship was then awarded to Bosna, after Šibenka refused to play in a rematch.[15]

Petrović increased his scoring numbers in each successive season that he played with Šibenka. In the

1982–83 Yugoslav FFL season, he scored 758 points in 31 games, for an average of 24.5 points per game.[16]
In total, he scored 1,202 points in 91 games played with Šibenka in the Yugoslav first division, for a scoring average of 13.2 points per game.

Rise to European stardom

Cibona Zagreb (1984–1988)

1984–85 season

After a year's mandatory service in the

Yugoslav League championship and the Yugoslav National Cup title. In national domestic league play, in the 1984–85 Yugoslav FFL season, Petrović scored a total of 878 points in 27 games played, for a scoring average of 32.5 points per game.[citation needed
]

On 6 December 1984, in the

Real Madrid. He scored 29 of the 44 points in the second half of the game. Petrović also scored 36 points in the league's 1985 Final against Real Madrid. Cibona won the game, by a score of 87–78, and the win brought the club their first top-tier level European Champions Cup title. That season, in Europe's top-level club competition, which eventually became known as the EuroLeague, Petrović scored a total of 463 points in 15 games played, for a scoring average of 30.9 points per game.[citation needed
]

1985–86 season

On 5 October 1985, in a

Union Olimpija Ljubljana, Petrović scored 112 points, in Cibona's 158–77 blowout win. He scored 67 of the 112 points in the first half of the game. During the game, Petrović shot 40/60 from the field, 10/20 from 3-point range, and 22/22 from the free-throw line.[17] The 112 points scored was the most points ever scored in a single game in the history of the Yugoslav First Federal League. It broke the league's previous single-game scoring record of 74 points, which was set in 1962, by Radivoj Korać. Korać achieved that record while playing with OKK Beograd, in a game against Mladost Zagreb.[18]

Olimpija Ljubljana had failed to fulfill their player registration administrative obligations in time for the game. Olimpija general manager Radovan Lorbek was reportedly late with submitting a registration letter to the Basketball Federation of Yugoslavia (KSJ) headquarters in Belgrade. That rendered their entire men's first team roster ineligible for the Yugoslav First Federal League's regular season opening game, and forced them to instead field players for the game from their youth systems.[19] Olimpija didn't have an under-18 youth squad that season so the club went to Zagreb to play the game with younger players.[19] in the under-16 and under-17 age groups, which included: Igor Đurović, Matjaž Strmole, Jože Maček, Dag Kralj, Tine Erjavec, Jure Zorčič, Gregor Stražiščar, Andrej Novina, and Tine Merzelj.[19][20]

Cibona, for their part, decided to use a mixed roster for the game, consisting of players from their youth system, plus their senior men's team's twenty-one-year-old Dražen Petrović, who broke Korać's single-game Yugoslav League scoring record of 74 points.[21] Petrović scored 112 points in the game; before the game, he had reportedly announced his intention to leave the game once he had surpassed Korać's 74 points record.[19] Petrović was one of only five Cibona players to score that day.[19]

From November 1985, Petrović began partnering in the backcourt with another high-scoring player, newly-arrived shooting guard Danko Cvjetićanin, brought in as replacement for Aco Petrović who was away serving his mandatory Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) stint.

Overall, over the

Bosna Sarajevo
.

On 4 December 1985, in a

Limoges, Petrović made ten 3-pointers, including seven in a row during a first-half stretch, for a final tally of 51 points and 10 assists in the game.[24]
The 51 points scored was also his personal career-high scored in a single EuroLeague game.

Petrović won his second straight FIBA European Champions Cup (EuroLeague) title with Cibona, as he scored 22 points in the league's 1986 Final, in which Cibona defeated the USSR Premier League club Žalgiris Kaunas, which starred the legendary Arvydas Sabonis. In the 1985–86 European Champions Cup (EuroLeague) season, Petrović scored a total of 555 points in 15 games played, for a scoring average of 37.0 points per game.

The season ended with Cibona losing the Yugoslav league playoff final series to KK Zadar. Following an opening game win, Petrović controversially sat out game 2 away in Zadar, ostensibly due to a pre-game warm-up injury, leading to accusations of tanking out of desire to win the title on home court in front of their own fans.[25] Cibona lost game 2 thus setting up the deciding game 3 at home in Zagreb at the sold out Dom sportova. However, in one of the biggest upsets in Yugoslav League history, despite having a double-digit lead in the second half, Cibona ended up losing game 3 in double overtime with Petrović fouling out during first overtime with 39 points scored.[26]

1986–87 season

In the

Scavolini Pesaro, in the league's 1986–87 season Final.[27]
It was the third straight European-wide club championship for Petrović and Cibona.

In the 1986–87 FIBA European Cup Winners Cup season, Petrović scored a total of 270 points in 8 games played, for a scoring average of 33.8 points per game.

1987–88 season

With Cibona, Petrović again won the

Real Madrid
. During the Korać Cup season, Petrović scored a total of 401 points in 12 games played, for a scoring average of 33.4 points per game.

During his four seasons with Cibona, Petrović scored a total of 3,911 points, in 106 games played in the national

Yugoslav First Federal League, for a scoring average of 36.9 points per game. With Cibona, he also scored a total of 559 points, in 20 games played, for a scoring average of 28.0 points per game, in the Yugoslav Cup
competition. In the three Pan-European club competitions that he played in with Cibona, he scored a total of 1,689 points in 50 games played, for a scoring average of 33.8 points per game.

With both Šibenka and Cibona, Petrović's career scoring numbers in the Yugoslav First Federal League were 5,113 points scored, in 197 games played, for a career scoring average of 26.0 points per game. In the top-level European-wide club competition, the

FIBA European Champions Cup
, which is now known as the EuroLeague, Petrović scored a career total of 1,018 points in 30 games played, for a career scoring average of 33.9 points per game.

Real Madrid (1988–1989)

After his string of very successful seasons with

Real Madrid, for around US$4 million in net income.[29]

At that time, Yugoslav sporting laws stipulated that players could not professionally move abroad until they had reached the age of 28. Petrović was still only 23 when he signed with Real Madrid. In 2014, José Antonio Arízaga, the sports agent who played a key role in Petrović's 1988 summer transfer from Cibona to Real, recalled a few details from the transaction: "I spoke to Mirko Novosel, Dražen's head coach at Cibona, and he told me two things. One, every problem in Yugoslavia can be taken care of with the right amount of money, and two, if Dražen leaves, every other player under 28 will be leaving and it'll be chaos. So, you can imagine all the individuals I had to bribe and all the places where I had to pay up, in order to circumvent this law".[30]

1988–89 season

Petrović helped Real to win the title of the

Barcelona. In the Spanish ACB League's Finals, Real Madrid narrowly lost to Barcelona, in the fifth and decisive game of the series. In the Spanish League's 1988–89 ACB season, Petrović was the league's regular season top scorer. Including the playoffs, he scored a total of 1,327 points, in 47 games played, for a scoring average of 28.2 points per game.[31] Petrović's first season in Spain's ACB was also his last, but he still holds the ACB's single-game Finals records for the most points scored, with 42, and for the most three-pointers made, with 8.[28]

In European-wide club competition, Real Madrid competed in the European secondary level

Snaidero Caserta, Petrović tied his previous best scoring performance in a European-wide club competition with 62 points.[29]

Petrović was pressured to join the

1986. Being motivated by the potential new challenges that the NBA presented, Petrović finally decided to try to establish himself in the league. He left Spain rather abruptly, at the end of the season; the Blazers assisted him in the process, by buying out his contract with Real Madrid, for as much as US$1.5 million.[32] Petrović finally joined the Blazers for the 1989–90 season
.

NBA career

Portland Trail Blazers (1989–1991)

The Blazers valued Petrović as a shooter, but were concerned that he might not possess the quickness to play guard or the foot speed to play defense. They brought him onto the team primarily as an outside threat to shoot three-pointers. In the Blazers' offensive scheme he was to set up behind the line, receive a passed ball and go directly up to release his shot. Petrović was an aggressive, attacking player who was used to creating his shot and shots for his teammates. Taking the ball out of his hands and making him a static shooter was foreign to him. Making matters worse, the Blazers already had a full rotation of guards, with a starting backcourt of Clyde Drexler and Terry Porter, and with veteran Danny Young as a reserve. Consequently, the reigning La Gazzetta dello Sport Euroscar European Player of the Year saw limited playing time. He had difficulty being productive in the limited role the Blazers had for him. In his rookie year during the 1989–90 NBA season, he averaged 7.4 points in 12 minutes per game.[33]

The following season, veteran guard Danny Ainge was added to the team, and Petrović's playing time dropped further to 7 minutes a game.[33] In many statements made prior to arriving in Portland, Petrović had said he saw a lack of playing time as the only possible obstacle to his success in the NBA.[29][34] He was determined to be a success in basketball's highest arena. His lack of playing time during his second season in the league brought Petrović's frustration to a climax: "I have nothing to say to Adelman any more and vice versa. Eighteen months have passed by, too long. I have to leave to prove how much I am worth. Never in my life did I sit on the bench and I don't intend to do that in Portland."[35]

At his insistence, 38 games into the season (20 of which held no playing time for Petrović), a three-way trade with the

New Jersey Nets in exchange for a first-round pick in the following draft and Walter Davis, who was sent from Denver to Portland.[33][36][37]

New Jersey Nets (1991–1993)

Petrović's Nets jersey; his number 3 was retired by the team following his death.

On 23 January 1991, Petrović became a member of the

New Jersey Nets. He joined a team that had not reached the playoffs since 1986, but had rookie Derrick Coleman, the number one selection from the 1990 draft. He was immediately given a role on the floor, with 20.5 minutes per game. His scoring over the remaining 43 games increased to 12.6 points per game, one of the league's best points-per-minute ratios. The following year, he and Coleman were joined by Kenny Anderson, giving the team a third talented new addition, and forming was expected to grow into a "big three".[38] Petrović was made a starter for the 1991–92 season, his first full season with the Nets. "Petro", as the Americans had dubbed him, did not miss a single game. On 13 March 1992, Petrović scored 39 points while shooting 65% from the field, and 100% (3 of 3) from 3 point range, in a 110–108 win against the Boston Celtics.[39] His determination, hard work and aggressive on-court demeanor established him as a team leader. In 36.9 minutes on the floor he averaged 20.6 points. Petrović led the Nets in field-goal shooting and free-throw shooting, and his field goal percentage of 51% placed him near the top of all NBA guards. More importantly, his success translated into success for the team. The Nets made the playoffs, recording 14 more wins than the previous year. On 23 April 1992, in Game 1 of their first round matchup against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Petrović scored a playoff career-high 40 points. The Nets would eventually lose the best of 5 series 3 games to 1.[40] The following season
saw Petrović increase his scoring average to 22.3 ppg, 11th best in the league.

Petrović's No. 3 hanging along with other notable Nets players, pictured in October 2018

On 6 December 1992, he was named MVP of the Week.

All-Star game
.

In an interview on the Scoop B Radio Podcast, Petrović's Nets teammate, Chucky Brown marveled at Petrović's healing ability. Brown told Brandon Scoop B Robinson that he remembered Petrović spraining his knee and was slated to miss two months. Petrović rehabbed so hard that he ended up only missing two weeks.[43]

Career statistics

Legend
  GP Games played   GS  Games started  MPG  Minutes per game
 FG%  Field goal percentage  3P%  3-point field goal percentage  FT%  Free throw percentage
 RPG  Rebounds per game  APG  Assists per game  SPG  Steals per game
 BPG  Blocks per game  PPG  Points per game  Bold  Career high

NBA

Regular season

Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
1989–90 Portland 77 0 12.6 .485 .459 .844 1.4 1.5 .3 .0 7.6
1990–91 Portland 18 0 7.4 .451 .167 .682 1.0 1.1 .3 .0 4.4
1990–91 New Jersey 43 0 20.5 .500 .373 .861 2.1 1.5 .9 .0 12.6
1991–92 New Jersey 82 82 36.9 .508 .444 .808 3.1 3.1 1.3 .1 20.6
1992–93 New Jersey 70 67 38.0 .518 .449 .870 2.7 3.5 1.3 .2 22.3
Career 290 149 26.4 .506 .437 .841 2.3 2.4 .9 .1 15.4

Playoffs

Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG
1990
 Portland 20 0 12.7 .440 .313 .583 1.6 1.0 .3 .0 6.1
1992
 New Jersey 4 4 40.8 .539 .333 .846 2.5 3.3 1.0 .3 24.3
1993
 New Jersey 5 5 38.6 .455 .333 .800 1.8 1.8 .4 .0 15.6
Career 29 9 21.0 .474 .324 .696 1.8 1.4 .4 .0 10.2

EuroLeague

Legend
  GP Games played   GS  Games started  MPG  Minutes per game
 FG%  Field-goal percentage  3P%  3-point field-goal percentage  FT%  Free-throw percentage
 RPG  Rebounds per game  APG  Assists per game  SPG  Steals per game
 BPG  Blocks per game  PPG  Points per game  PIR  Performance Index Rating
 Bold  Career high  †  Won a EuroLeague championship
Year Team GP GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% RPG APG SPG BPG PPG PIR
1984–85
†
Cibona Zagreb
 15 — — — — — — — — — 30.9 —
1985–86
†
Cibona Zagreb
 15 — — — — — — — — — 37.0 —
Career 30 — — — — — — — — — — —

National team career

Yugoslavia

Petrović's national team debut came at the age of 15, at the Under-18 Balkan Championship in Turkey, where the Yugoslavia junior team won the bronze. The young man regularly played for the Yugoslavia national team in the Balkan Championships, also winning gold with the junior team and silver with the senior team. He also brought back the silver from the 1982 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship in Bulgaria.

Two moments of Petrović with the two national teams where he played: (left) with the Yugoslavia celebrating (first from right, at bottom) after winning the EuroBasket 1989; (right): with teammate Dino Rađa, holding the flag of Croatia

The

University Games, held in Zagreb in 1987, saw the Yugoslavian squad with Petrović win the gold. In the 1988 Summer Olympics, Yugoslavia with Petrović, earned 2nd place, as they lost once more to the Soviet powerhouse.[27]

An excellent club season with Real Madrid was topped by Petrović's 1989 accomplishment with the Yugoslavia national team: at the EuroBasket in Zagreb, the young Yugoslavian team went all the way, defeating Greece more than comfortably in the championship game. Petrović was the tournament's second leading scorer and Most Valuable Player. The very next year, the summer in between the two most frustrating seasons of his professional career, as he struggled for playing time with the Trail Blazers, Petrović was again making history with the national team, as Yugoslavia became world champions, after beating the Soviet Union for the gold in Buenos Aires, at the 1990 FIBA World Championship.[44]

Overall, Petrović represented Yugoslavia's senior national team in 155 games, in which he scored a total of 3,258 points, for a career scoring average of 21.0 points per game.[45]

Croatia

Petrović playing for Croatia

The 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, marked the first summer Olympics featuring the independent Croatia, and Petrović was the leader of the Croatian national basketball team at the Olympic basketball tournament. Losing only to the American Dream Team in the group stage, a strong and inspired Croatian team emerged victorious from the Semifinals against the revamped Soviet team, thanks to clutch free throws executed by Petrović, and faced off against the Americans for the gold. Urged on by Petrović's competitiveness and confidence,[5] the Croatians fared well in the first ten minutes of the game, taking a 25–23 lead on a Franjo Arapović dunk and the subsequent made free throw.[46] As the game progressed, however, the now-legendary team composed of NBA stars proved too tough for Croatia: the Americans won 117–85, sending Petrović, the game's leading scorer with 24 points, and his teammates, home with silver medals.[5][47]

In the period during which Petrović played for the senior Croatian national team (1992–1993), he appeared in 40 games and scored a total of 1,002 points, for a career scoring average of 25.1 points per game. His highest single-game point tally came against Estonia, on 31 May 1993 (48 points).[48] Counting the senior national team games that he played in with both Yugoslavia's and Croatia's national teams, Petrović scored a total of 4,260 points in 195 games played, for a career scoring average of 21.8 points per game.

Death and legacy

In the summer of 1993, after his best NBA season and the Nets' first-round elimination by the

1993 EuroBasket. He was contemplating departure from the Nets, disappointed with the fact that the Nets had not yet extended his contract. He told American reporters that the lack of recognition in the league made him also consider leaving the NBA completely and playing club basketball in Greece. There were at least two Greek clubs ready to offer Petrović three-year contracts worth US$7.5 million net.[37] Petrović decided to skip the connection flight back to Zagreb from Frankfurt and instead drive to Zagreb with a woman he was romantically involved with at the time. He had met her only a few weeks prior after a game at the Meadowlands Arena.[49]

The grave of Petrović at Mirogoj in Zagreb

Petrović died in a traffic accident at about 5:20 p.m. on 7 June 1993. On the rain-drenched

median; the driver was trying to avoid a collision with a personal vehicle in his own lane and lost control of the truck, crashing through the median barrier and finally coming to a stop and blocking all three lanes of traffic going in the opposite direction. Seconds later, the Volkswagen Golf carrying a sleeping Petrović in the passenger seat crashed into the truck, and Petrovic was ejected from the vehicle. According to the autopsy report, Petrovic died of severe head injuries on impact. The driver, Klara Szalantzy, a Hungarian model and basketball player with whom Petrović was romantically involved, and Hilal Edebal, a female Turkish basketball player, sustained serious injuries.[37][50] It was established that visibility on the road was very poor and neither Petrovic nor Edebal wore their seatbelts.[5][51] According to Edebal, who incurred severe memory loss as a result of the accident and would never play basketball again, Szalantzy was driving 180 kilometres per hour (110 mph), which was legal on the Autobahn. Szalantzy would return to modeling and basketball not long after.[52][53]

Petrović statue outside Dražen Petrović Basketball Hall

Petrović's tomb 45°50′22″N 15°59′00″E / 45.83947°N 15.98328°E / 45.83947; 15.98328 at

FIBA Hall of Fame in 2007.[56]

The 2010 documentary,

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. In 2011, a statue of him as a little boy sitting on a bench with a ball was unveiled in Šibenik, and his old room was renovated the way it looked when he was young, as a first part of opening a Memorial Center in his hometown. During the 2012 Three Point Shootout, New Jersey Nets guard Anthony Morrow wore Petrović's jersey in the latter's honor. In 2015, Australian writer Todd Spehr released a 470-page biography on Petrović, titled Dražen: The Remarkable Life & Legacy of the Mozart of Basketball.[57] At the urging of the Petrovic family, Spehr's book was released in the Croatian language in 2016 at the Petrovic Museum, and is considered the definitive work on his life. On 3 June 2015, Croatian basketball journalists Marjan Crnogaj and Vlado Radicevic released a 487-page biography,[58] the global paperback edition of which was released on 14 October 2017.[59]

Reactions

Monument of Petrović in Lausanne created by Vasko Lipovac

"It's hard for you to imagine here in America, because you have so many great players, but we are a country of four million; without him, basketball takes three steps back."

— Aleksandar "Aco" Petrović[32]

"You know, there is a saying that we have about JFK, John F. Kennedy – 'You know, Johnny, we never got to know you.' And I kind of feel that way about Dražen. I felt that the whole year that I was with him went by too fast and I really never got to know him the way I would have liked to."

— Chuck Daly[60]

"Dražen and I were very good friends. I was one of those people who welcomed him to Portland when he came from Europe. We talked about his family a lot in his restaurant, and he enjoyed his friends and he enjoyed the game of basketball. I really respect him because he worked very, very hard. Each and every day in practice he would be the first guy to come and the last guy to leave the gym. So anybody with that kind of dedication...you have to have a lot of respect for him."

— Clyde Drexler[60]

"Dražen Petrović was an extraordinary young man, and a true pioneer in the global sports of basketball. I know that a lasting part of his athletic legacy will be that he paved the way for other international players to compete successfully in the NBA. His contributions to the sport of basketball were enormous. We are all proud of the fact we knew him."

— David Stern[61]

"It was a thrill to play against Dražen. Every time we competed, he competed with an aggressive attitude. He wasn't nervous; he came at me as hard as I came at him. So we've had some great battles in the past and unfortunately, they were short battles."

— Michael Jordan[61]

Accomplishments and awards

Club competitions

National teams

Dražen Petrović Memorial Center

A museum named "The Dražen Petrović Memorial Center" was founded in his honor, and constitutes a co-operative effort led by the Dražen Petrović Foundation in conjunction with the Croatian government, the city of Zagreb and the Croatian Museum of Sports. The memorial center idea originated from Petrović's parents, Biserka and Jole Petrovic, and was supported with the contributions of Croatian architects Andrija Rusan and Niksa Bilic. All of the articles presented in the center have been collected and categorized by the Croatian Museum of Sports. The organization and operations of the center have been provided by the Dražen Petrović Foundation, which is led by Petrović's family. The Center contains his No. 3 New Jersey Nets jersey and the watch that stopped when he died in a car crash. The center features 1,000 memorabilia items and a video of his basketball highlights.[63]

The official opening of the museum was held on 7 June 2006, while the official opening of the center to the public began at the end of December 2006. The square on which the center is operated upon has been renamed to Dražen Petrović Square in his honor.[64] In 2013, former NBA MVP Derrick Rose visited the museum.[65]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Novak Đoković dobitnik "Sportove" zlatne značke; Dobitnici zlatne značke". DSL Sport. Archived from the original on 26 January 2016. Retrieved 9 January 2016.
  2. ^ SI.com The tragic death of Drazen Petrovic
  3. ^ NBA.com, Drazen Petrovic
  4. ^ CroatiaWeek.com The Best European Basketballer Ever
  5. ^ a b c d e f Rodrick, Stephen. "Spirit of the Game". August 8 issue of ESPN The Magazine. Archived from the original on 13 March 2007.
  6. ^ "Brooklyn Nets to play in Croatia to honour Dražen Petrović? | Croatia Week". 8 November 2021.
  7. ^ tampabay.com/archive/1993/06/10/croatia-mourns-a-hero/
  8. ^ "A World Apart, Nets' Petrovic Is Mourned: In New Jersey and Croatia, 28-year-old guard is remembered after being killed in car crash". Los Angeles Times. 9 June 1993. Retrieved 30 June 2013. His father was a Serb and his mother a Croat, and he competed for Croatia
  9. ^ Dušan Čolović (15 August 1990). "Igraću samo za Jugoslaviju!". Tempo (1277).
  10. ^ "Prisoners of War". Sports Illustrated, 1996 Olympics. Petrovic, whose father is a Serb
  11. ^ Dmitrović, Ratko (1 October 2010). "Praznina u duši Vlade Divca".
  12. ^ A., L. (16 August 2013). "Evo dokaza: Dražen Petrović i Bodiroga su bliski rođaci!" [Here's a Proof: Dražen Petrović and Bodiroga Are Close Relatives] (in Croatian). Retrieved 3 September 2017.
  13. ^ "Nije Sam Bodiroga: Dražen Petrović je bio rođak i legendarnog košarkaša Partizana". SrbijaDanas. 20 May 2020.
  14. ^ "101 Greats: Dejan Bodiroga". EuroLeague. 8 June 2020. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
  15. ^ Sibenik.hr, Drazen Petrović profile Archived 16 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine, sibenik.hr; accessed 19 August 2015.
  16. ^ a b "Statistics from Drazen Petrovic in Former YUBA League". Archived from the original on 2 June 2021. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  17. ^ When Drazen Petrovic Scored 112 Points In One Game.
  18. ^ THE LATE GREAT DRAZEN PETROVIC ONCE scored 112 points in a single game.
  19. ^ a b c d e Đurović, Igor (27 December 2016). "KAKO NAM JE DRAŽEN DAO 112 POENA". Koš magazin. Retrieved 31 December 2016.
  20. RTV Slovenija
    . 9 October 2015. Retrieved 31 December 2016.
  21. ^ Bjelobaba, Darko (26 October 2014). "Sezona 1985-86: Vlade Đurović, heroj Jazina". Koš magazin. Retrieved 7 December 2015.
  22. ^ DrazenPetrovic.com, Cibona Story Archived 2 November 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  23. ^ a b 24sec.net, Hall of Fame Archived 19 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine, drazenpetrovic.com; accessed 19 August 2015.
  24. ^ DrazenPetrovic.com, Cibona: Moment in time...
  25. ^ Č., S. (26 April 2016). "Noć kad je Zadar napisao najljepšu košarkašku bajku i rasplakao Dražena i Zagreb". Index.hr. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
  26. ^ Klobučarić, Goran (26 April 2018). "Vremeplov: Čudesna subota u Domu sportova". Koš magazin. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
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Sources

External links

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