Drazen Petrovic
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| Player information | ||
|---|---|---|
| birthday | October 22, 1964 | |
| place of birth | Šibenik , SR Croatia , SFR Yugoslavia | |
| date of death | June 7, 1993 at the age of 28 | |
| Place of death | Denkendorf , Germany | |
| size | 196 cm | |
| Weight | 88 kg | |
| position | Shooting Guard | |
| NBA draft | 1986 , 60th Pick, Portland Trail Blazers | |
| Clubs as active | ||
Until 1985 KK Šibenik 1985–1988 Cibona Zagreb 1988–1989 Real Madrid 1989–1991 Portland Trail Blazers 1991–1993 New Jersey Nets.svg){kind=small}  
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| National team | ||
1982-1992 1992-1993
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Yugoslavia Croatia |
40 games |
Dražen Petrović (born October 22, 1964 in Šibenik , SR Croatia , SFR Yugoslavia , † June 7, 1993 in Denkendorf ) was a Croatian basketball player . He is widely regarded as one of the best European basketball players of all time and is still revered by many fans as a basketball legend and one of the most successful Europeans in the North American professional league NBA . With the senior national team of the former Yugoslavia, he was once world champion and European champion . With Cibona Zagreb he won, among other things, the European Cup. In 2002 he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame . Four times the Italian chose him Gazzetta dello Sport the best European basketball player (1986, '89, '92 and '93). In 2008, Petrović was named one of the 50 most important players in the history of the Europa League . Because of his elegant way of playing he was called "Mozart of the parquet".
life and career
Petrović was born as the son of the Serbian policeman Jovan and the Croatian Biserka Petrović in Šibenik, a port city on the Adriatic Sea in the former Yugoslavia . Dražen Petrović was the couple's second child. The first child, Aleksandar , first found his way into basketball. Dražen was a second cousin of the Serbian basketball player Dejan Bodiroga , because Dejan's grandmother (on the paternal side) and Dražen's grandfather (also on the paternal side) are siblings.
His extraordinary talent became apparent early on; at the age of 15 he played in the national team of Yugoslavia, which was considered one of the strongest in the world. At 18, he was considered the best player in Yugoslavia. Scouts from American universities offered him sports scholarships , but he didn't accept any of them.
After a year of military service in the army, he moved from KK Šibenik to KK Cibona Zagreb in 1985 . There he won a series of titles and trophies, including the national championship and the Korać Cup . In his four years at Cibona he achieved an average of 37.7 points in the first Yugoslav league, and on the European stage he achieved an average of 33.8 points. His high score in a league game was 112 points, in a European cup game 62 points. In 1986 he was voted 60th in the NBA Draft by the Portland Trail Blazers . After a short stop at Real Madrid (1988/89), with whom he won the Spanish Cup and the European Cup Winners' Cup and still holds the league record for most points scored in a final series game, Petrović moved to the NBA.
His debut season in Portland was worse than expected, behind superstar Clyde Drexler Petrović got little playing time. In 1991 he moved to the New Jersey Nets and made his breakthrough there. In the 1992/93 season he threw an average of 22.3 points per game, the best performance of a European basketball player in the NBA until then. It was only ten years later that Dirk Nowitzki's record was exceeded. At the Olympic Games in Barcelona, the Croatian national team with Petrović only lost to the US dream team in the final .
Petrović's contract with the Nets expired in 1993. In order to improve his negotiating position in the upcoming contract negotiations, he spread rumors that he might sign with another club, possibly also in Europe. The management of the Nets took their time in the contract negotiations, so Petrović negotiated with Panathinaikos Athens , among others . The last offer by the Nets was $ 13.5 million for four years; It remains unclear whether Petrović would have accepted the offer. According to rumors, Panathinaikos offered him a blank contract in which Petrović could have entered the salary himself. To this day there is speculation that Petrović agreed to Panathinaiko's contract terms. Club vice-president Athanassios Giannakopoulos confirmed this again in an interview in May 2007.
Dražen Petrović died in June 1993 as a passenger in a car accident on the A 9 near Ingolstadt when a truck broke through the guardrail and hit his car. The driver of the car was his girlfriend at the time, Klara Szalantzy, who survived the accident. She has been married to Oliver Bierhoff since 2001 . Dražen Petrović was buried in the Mirogoj cemetery in Zagreb .
At the end of 1993, the Nets Petrovićs withdrew jersey number 3. The tennis player Goran Ivanišević , a close friend of Petrović, dedicated his Wimbledon victory in 2001 to him . In 2007, Petrović was one of the first players to be inducted into the newly created FIBA Hall of Fame .
National team
| year | event | host | placement | country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Balkan Championship Juniors | Istanbul , Turkey | 3. | SFR Yugoslavia |
| 1981 | Balkan Championship cadets | Thessaloniki , Greece | 1. | SFR Yugoslavia |
| 1982 | Balkan Championship Juniors | Patras , Greece | 1. | SFR Yugoslavia |
| 1982 | European Championship for Junior Men | Dimitrovgrad and Haskovo , Bulgaria | 2. | SFR Yugoslavia |
| 1983 | University Games | Edmonton , Canada | 2. | SFR Yugoslavia |
| 1984 | Balkan Championship | Athens , Greece | 2. | SFR Yugoslavia |
| 1984 | Olympic games | Los Angeles , California | 3. | SFR Yugoslavia |
| 1986 | World Championship | Madrid , Spain | 3. | SFR Yugoslavia |
| 1987 | University Games | Zagreb , SFR Yugoslavia | 1. | SFR Yugoslavia |
| 1987 | European Championship | Athens, Greece | 3. | SFR Yugoslavia |
| 1988 | Olympic games | Seoul , South Korea | 2. | SFR Yugoslavia |
| 1989 | European Championship | Zagreb, SFR Yugoslavia | 1. | SFR Yugoslavia |
| 1990 | World Championship | Buenos Aires , Argentina | 1. | SFR Yugoslavia |
| 1992 | Olympic games | Barcelona , Spain | 2. | Croatia |
- Balkan Championship Juniors, 1982 Best Player
- World Championship, 1986 MVP
- European Championship, 1989 MVP
Web links
- Dražen Petrović - player profile on basketball-reference.com
- Dražen Petrović - player profile on basketball-reference.com
- Dražen Petrović in the Basketball Hall of Fame (Archive) ( Memento from March 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- Drazen Petrovic in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (English)
- Official website (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mike Freeman, "Petrovic, Feeling Slighted, May Not Re-sign With Nets," in: New York Times , December 8, 1992 issue.
- ^ Report ( Memento from May 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) on sportime.gr, May 11, 2007.
- ↑ When “Mozart” died on the autobahn , Allgemeine-zeitung.de from June 6, 2018, accessed on November 14, 2019.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Petrović, Dražen |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Croatian basketball player |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 22, 1964 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Šibenik , SR Croatia , SFR Yugoslavia |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 7, 1993 |
| Place of death | Denkendorf , Germany |