Drazen Petrović was his name.
There’s always ‘the one’ who made things possible. Jackie Robinson was that player in Major League Baseball. In the NBA, it was Drazen Petrović. Former NBA superstar Reggie Miller said Petrović “was the better shooter and had a faster release than Steph Curry.” Now, that’s saying something!
Petrović, who grew up in Croatia, was said to love basketball so much that that’s all he would think about. His older brother helped him learn the game, and it didn’t take long before Petrović developed into a gamer. A prolific score, it was not unusual for him to score sixty points in a game. Soon, he became known as the ‘Mozart of Basketball.”
The NBA took notice.
Bucky Buckwalter, who at the time was a Portland Trailblazers scout, drew up the contract and brought him to Portland. Petrović had a solid first season but wanted to do better. After a playing backup to superstar Clyde Drexler, Petrović asked to be traded to the New Jersey (now Brooklyn) Nets. And he got what he wanted.
It was there that Petrović became an NBA force, averaging 22 points a game. Always known as a shooter, his other stats went up, too. But, then, during the height of his career, tragedy struck.
During the off-season of 1993, Petrović died in a car crash in Germany. Petrović was a passenger in a car driven by his girlfriend. She tried to avoid getting involved in an accident, but couldn’t, and Drazen’s life ended that night.
While we’ll never know what his full career would have been like, what we do know is that Petrović helped pave the way for European players to go pro in the NBA. We also know that his name is held in the highest regard. That’s because, in 2002, Drazen Petrović was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Later, he was similarly honored by FIBA. And, in 2013, FIBA named Petrović the best European basketball player ever.
