Every basketball fan won’t need more than a second to recall the name of Dražen Petrović. A life story so unreal, dreamy, and tragic simultaneously calls for a movie adaptation, at least. A boy from Šibenik who found interest in basketball by looking at his older brother while playing it, merged incredible talent and lots of hard work to achieve a career generation of basketball players later could only dream of. Scouts recognized his ability at an early age, and from Šibenik, barely legal, he started to play for Croatia’s biggest club Cibona. Later on, he moved to Spain to play for Real Madrid and at the same time lead the Croatian national team to the 1st place in World Championship in Argentina in 1990.
The NBA scouts didn’t take long to pull Dražen Petrović to the US. He started his American career in the Portland Trail Blazers and afterward in the team that marked his blissful career, the New Jersey Nets. He was a respected and fantastic player in the Nets team, especially after the finals in the 1992 Olympics, where he led Croatia against the USA’s Dream Team (Jordan, Bird, Pippen, Drexler, etc.).
His life tragically ended in the summer of 1993 in Germany, where he lost his life in a car accident as a passenger in a car driven by his girlfriend. At the time of his death, he was only 29 years old and in the prime of his career.
His legacy lives almost 30 years after his death, from several sculptures in Croatia and Switzerland, a place in the Basketball Hall of Fame, a memorial center in Zagreb and never having anyone wearing a jersey with the number 3 written on it in the Nets.
