When the legendary Michael Jordan says about a fellow player that he always goes at opponents with strength and courage, there is no doubt he is talking about someone he deeply respects. When an ordinary man from Madrid names his son Dražen, he surely has in mind a person who should serve as a role model for his child. And when the myth of a human being continues to fascinate even decades after his death, it is undeniable that such a person is not born every day.
“Little One,” as Croatian basketball player Dražen Petrović was nicknamed, was born on October 22, 1964, in Šibenik. With Cibona, he won two European championship titles, and as a member of the Yugoslav national team, he became both a world and European champion. In 2013, he was named the greatest European player of all time.
From Cibona, he moved to the most decorated European club, Real Madrid. He quickly became a star in Spain as well. It was said that when he entered a restaurant, even the music would rise to greet him. His time on the Iberian Peninsula was just a stop on his path to the NBA. After a year, he put on a Portland jersey and at the same time came to terms with the fact that European players were not given the respect they deserved by American coaches. He was troubled and wondered what was happening to him and why he wasn’t getting playing time. For these reasons, he moved to New Jersey, where he played the basketball of his life. After his second season, he was selected among the fifteen best basketball players in the world. Singer Whitney Houston, who lived in Jersey, sent him an invitation to the premiere of her film, while John F. Kennedy Jr. invited him to his perfume promotions. In the basketball world, the respect was even more evident—he was admired by the best players. Michael Jordan said that Dražen feared no one, yet had a gentle soul. Reggie Miller claimed he had never seen a better shooter, and Petrović was inducted into the Hall of Fame in the same year as Magic Johnson.
Dražen Petrović was a member of what was probably the strongest “white” basketball team ever—the Yugoslav national team—which many believed was the only one capable of defeating the original American Dream Team with Jordan, Magic, Bird, and others. Alongside Divac, Kukoč, Rađa, Danilović, Paspalj, Đorđević, Vranković, and others, he helped make Yugoslav players feared by everyone.
On that fateful June 7, 1993, the Croatian national team landed at the airport in Frankfurt. They had been in Poland preparing for the European Championship in Germany. Instead of flying back to Zagreb with the rest of the team, he waited for his then-girlfriend, basketball player and model Klara Szalantzy, to pick him up by car. He died as a passenger in a traffic accident on Autobahn 9 near Denkendorf, close to Ingolstadt, Germany, at approximately 5:20 PM—just four and a half months before his 29th birthday.
According to the Ingolstadt police report, a truck driver tried to avoid a collision with a car in his lane, lost control, broke through the central barrier, and stopped, blocking all three lanes in the direction of Munich. Seconds later, a Volkswagen Golf carrying a sleeping Petrović in the passenger seat crashed into the truck, killing only him, while seriously injuring the driver, Klara Szalantzy, and a passenger in the back seat, a Turkish basketball player. It was determined that visibility was very poor and that Petrović was not wearing a seatbelt.
Dražen Petrović’s grave at Mirogoj Cemetery immediately became a shrine for his countrymen. Cibona’s arena was renamed the Dražen Petrović Basketball Center on October 4, 1993, and the city of Zagreb has a square named after him. On April 29, 1995, a statue was erected in front of the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, honoring Petrović’s contribution to the world of sports, making him only the second athlete to receive such recognition.
