30 years after the death of Drazen Petrovic, the unfinished myth: "There will never be anyone like him"

That June 7, one of those days that can be counted on the fingers of one hand in which no one forgets where they were, what they were doing when the tragedy struck. The untimely death of a genius. On that German highway, a night of dogs, in a red Golf smashed into pieces against a truck that had skipped the median, Drazen Petrovic, an unclassifiable player, died 30 years ago, asleep in the passenger seat.. “A basketball fanatic”, “an obsessive”, “a complex figure”.. Descriptions of those who had the privilege of being close to the unfinished myth that converge in unanimity: “There will never be anyone like it.”

The destination is a plane bound for Zagreb where they do not get on with the rest of the classmates, a few days off after a Pre-European in Wroclaw (Poland), a trip from Frankfurt to Munich with his girlfriend, Klara Szalantzy, and a friend, the Turkish player Hilal Edebal. And fatality at 28 years. “Perasovic and I had missed the last flight to Split and had to sleep in a hotel. The phone rang at dawn. They wake us up with the news. You never forget that moment. Sitting on the bed Velimir and I, staring into space. You can't believe a mate just died.”

The young Zan Tabak had said goodbye, like the rest of the components of the Croatian team, to Petrovic. See you soon, because in a few weeks they would face the first Eurobasket in the history of the country, which had become independent in 1991 and which the previous summer had won silver at the Barcelona Games. There, in Germany, Lolo Sainz, the Spanish coach at the time, was looking forward to meeting his pupil again, that “murderer” who, when he was a rival, “did us down, to put it mildly”, with La Cibona (in five matches against Real Madrid, 41 points on average). But when he had him under his orders in white, in that unforgettable 88/89 season, he discovered “a great professional”. «People received it with resentment, but it caused me a wonderful feeling from the beginning. Basketball was in his blood, he was a born winner”, recalls the former coach.

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Nor does José Luis Llorente keep any negative memories of the genius of Sibenik, despite the fact that he was one of those who had to dance with the scorn, the bicycles and the provocations of that precocious Petrovic who converted, together with his brother Aza, every eighties battle against Madrid in a nightmare. “He was very cordial, friendly, easy-going, he almost never got angry,” says the former white point guard of his subsequent coexistence.

Because the only thing that ever mattered to Drazen was winning and the rabid raised fist was his enduring seal.. Since he made his debut at Sibenka, whom he led to the Korac final at the age of 17 – “there is a kid in Sibenik who will be better than Kicanovic, Dapilagic and me. He is very ambitious and does incredible things.. His name is Drazen Petrovic, remember this name”, Moka Slavnic warned a group of journalists in 1979 -, until his last season with the Nets, where, finally, he had also managed to charm that NBA that received him with so little affection and prominence in Portland. “Reggie Miller talked to me a lot about him in Indiana, they had had a lot of disagreements, but I respected him,” recalls Tabak.. They said that the forward, another demon of provocation, praised that cheeky European saying that he could insult him in four languages. He also had them with John Starks, who one day headbutted him: “He's a pimp with a foreign accent,” the Knicks star insulted him.

Tabak, a former center for Madrid, the Rockets and the Pacers, among others, recalls Drazen's footprint in the best league in the world in the years after his death. He describes his teammate, who was a pioneer in making the leap to the NBA while already a star in Europe, as “a basketball fan, an incredible worker, an example for all young people of how to progress.”. There is his quality and talent, but I have seen very few with that dedication to work.

The players of the Croatian national team, with Petrovic's coffin.

Legend has it that Petrovic, who got on a plane in the summer of 1988 to sign for Barça and got off with a Real Madrid scarf (Aíto García Reneses rejected his signing, due to his selfishness on the pitch), asked for the keys to the old Sports City pavilion to go pitching in your spare time. This is how he did it in his hometown, on the shores of the Adriatic, together with his brother Alexandar when he was a teenager.. In his only but intense season in the capital of Spain, he lived in an apartment on Alfredo Marquerie street, in the Mirasierra neighborhood, together with Renata, his girlfriend at the time, and with the logistical help of Miroslav Vorgid, a Balkan physical trainer. of the club that acted as translator. “He just had to cross the street,” admits Lolo Sainz, who remembers the “gypsies” that the Croatian recruited for “100 pesetas” so that, after each training session, they would bounce him in his routines with that shot that he had to improve, “like an obsession. He always wanted more and more »He was also helped by one of the juniors, such as Joaquín Herencia or Miguel Ángel Cabral.

«He was a complex figure, his priority was himself. I had the challenge of improving, almost something pathological. I suppose that like all those who are very bright”, defines Jou Llorente, who was surprised “to see him so tense on match days, starting in the morning”, and who speaks of the problems on the track of that Madrid that would reconquer the Cup del Rey and would raise the Recopa with the unforgettable 62 points from Petrovic to Snaidero Caserta (117-113) at the Palace of Peace and Friendship in Athens and the no less historic anger of Fernando Martín, but who would lose the ACB -not without controversy , since the referee of the final match was Juan José Neyro, whom Drazen had spat in the face of years ago, in the Puerto Real tournament, against Epi and Norris's Barça. «Training did not try very hard. That is to say, he did not train as he played and that made it difficult for the group to adjust”. That individualism was, at the same time, pure gold for his colleagues. Quique Villalobos, who was one of his closest supporters in the white dressing room, usually remembers that with Drazen “the feeling is that it was impossible to lose.”

Petrovic and Ramón Mendoza, after winning the Recopa.

“I always thought he was a big shy. He closed in on himself, he was obsessed. He did not even succumb to the night in Madrid, like other foreigners who arrived. I never got any of his nocturnal tricks “, Lolo Sainz describes the myth that he misses so much. I have no hobbies. Only the basket”, he came to pronounce. “He was introverted and a bit collected,” confirms Llorente.

Four days after the fatal accident, at Zagreb's Mirogoj cemetery, 100,000 Croats led by the nation's first president, Franjo Tudjman, and legendary coach Mirko Novosel at their helm, bid farewell to their hero.. The one who lifted European Cups with La Cibona, the one who conquered the NBA (22.3 points per game and 44.9% in triples in his last season), the one who battled against the Dream Team, looking Jordan in the eye in the Olympic final. His mother Biserka, broken with grief, held by her other son, Aza. His giant companions (Radja, Kukoc, Vrankovic…), shrunken carrying the coffin. Also close to Chris Dudley and Chris Morris, of those Nets to whom it seemed that he was not going to return. And, from a distance, to brothers like Vlade Divac, with whom he was world champion at Luna Park three years earlier, now turned into enemies by the war, without ever being able to say goodbye to him over a bloody flag.

“It was a sad and hard moment. It was an emblem of the country. In his best year, with that youth… It was shocking,” says Tabak, one of those also present at the imposing funeral chapel that was set up in the Cibona pavilion, summarizing the legacy of the pioneer, of the Mozart of basketball: “There have always been players who have changed history. For example, LeBron or Jokic now. Guys who bring something new. This was the Drazen era. He was innovating, everyone was looking at him trying to copy.”