Death at the WingEpisode 6: Drazen Petrovic and Basketball’s Cold War

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Back in 1988, the USA Men’s Basketball team did something they almost never did...

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: The United States found themselves in a position in the last sevenminutes of this game of having to score on almost every possession and they could not.

After winning 9 of the last 10 Olympics they competed in, they lost.

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: But there’s no time, really, for even a miracle now. And the Soviets arealready celebrating.

The USA suddenly found itself wearing bronze. It did not go over well.

And so, as the dust settled, they decided to do what America does best: get betterthrough hard work, inch by inch, grinding it out… I’m kidding. No, we did the realAmerican thing.

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: What may well be the best basketball team ever assembled…

...which is throwing lots of money at something to make even more money.

And so, for the next Olympics, they formed a super squad of sorts. No more amateurs. Itwas time to bend the rules a little bit and bring in the pros. And, of course, bring inReebok to sponsor it.

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: And now, the United States of America.

This was the Dream Team. Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan. This wasn’t aboutwinning gold. This was about buying the whole fucking gold mine. Shock and awe.

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But in Barcelona in 1992, one player in all of the Olympics didn’t get the memo... or fax. Itwas the early 90s, after all.

While players from Angola and Brazil were more interested in posing for pictures andasking for autographs from the American superstars, this one, solitary player did what healways did. Get buckets.

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: But Petrovic is able to put it home, and we have a one-point ball game.

Play after play, no matter what or who they threw at him, this sharpshooter from theCroatian city of Šibenik would not be denied.

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: Drazen Petrovic, 28 points, that’s a three-pointer.

He was known as the ‘Mozart of basketball.’ And on the world stage, in this gold medalgame, with the lights at their brightest, he would be the highest scorer. His name wasDrazen Petrovic and he was a flamethrower.

But, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Drazen wasn’t supposed to be wearing a Croatianjersey. He was supposed to be there with his Yugoslavian teammates -- Vlade Divac, ToniKukoc, on their own ‘Dream Team.’ The team that many thought could maybe, justmaybe, take down the United States.

But there’s basketball, and there’s the real world. By the time of the 1992 Olympics,Yugoslavia was no more, its star players scattered across splintered teams or watchingfrom home.

We were robbed of an epic matchup, and some of the players felt robbed of theirhomeland.

ARCHIVALREPORTER: A fragile peace in Yugoslavia is more fragile than ever…

And before long, the ‘Mozart of basketball’ would be robbed of his life.

REPORTER: ...and the president of Yugoslavia’s largest republic is telling his people tobe prepared for war.

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I’m Adam McKay from Hyperobject Industries and Three Uncanny Four. This is Death atthe Wing. Tonight’s episode: Drazen Petrovic, the end of the Cold War, and the rise ofinternational basketball.

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In the West in the 1980s, individual star power was taking over basketball. MichaelJordan was leading the way, redefining the very nature of an athlete with every Big Macor sneaker he sold.

But Yugoslavia was experiencing its own basketball renaissance.

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: Three more! Petrovic again, another steal for Petrovic, another three. Sixin three seconds for Petrovic.

Petro came of age in Yugoslavia, a complex, coastal country nestled on an EasternEuropean peninsula known as the Balkans.

ZACH LOWE: He's from a small town in Croatia called Sibenik, which is a town on the coastbetween Dubrovnik and Split, which are probably the two most popular tourist cities in Croatia.It's a beautiful town. There was a big basketball scene there, and he grew up in and around thegame.

Zach Lowe, a writer from ESPN, would be the first one to tell you that Sibenik isn’tRucker Park, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t ball.

ZACH LOWE: It was just part of the culture. I believe Drazen’s father played. Lots of currentplayers had fathers and uncles that played. It's always been a big part of the culture. People arevery tall in Croatia. That's probably one reason why. They're a very athletic country.

Maybe teams there lacked the jaw-dropping athleticism of players in America, butYugoslavia was inventing its own brand of ball: A collectivist symphony of passing,spreading the floor and letting shots fly from all over the court.

It was like socialism on the hardwood. Everyone owned the means of points production.

ARCHIVALDrazen Highlights in Europe

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Drazen quickly moved up the ranks even as a teenager, from small local squads to thebig marquee teams.

JOSIP GLAURDIC: There were obviously massive, important clubs. Yugoslav clubs wonEuropean championships, and part of it had to do with the fact that, due to the system that wasin place, the players couldn't go abroad.

Josip Glaurdic is a professor at the university of Luxembourg and author of The Hour ofEurope, Western Powers and the Breakup of Yugoslavia. But back in the 80s, he was justa kid from Split.

JOSIP GLAURDIC: They had to stay in their country. So that created sort of a huge internalmarket that where a bunch of little clubs, or rather clubs in small towns, this was their chance toget on the national stage.

Drazen’s squad won the Yugoslav championship and the National Cup. The secret wasout. U.S. coaches like Notre Dame’s Digger Phelps starting peeking behind the IronCurtain, hoping to catch a glimpse of this rising phenom. No surprise, any Americantrying to scout in Yugoslavia faced a maze of bureaucracy and territorial roadblocks.

Hell, the overlords of the Yugoslavian basketball world thought that Digger was such athreat, they even spread rumors he was a CIA agent.

In fact, they missed the real undercover agent: a former NBA legend named GeorgeMikan, who was running a honeypot trap out of Belgrade, sleeping with high-rankingYugoslav officials to get top secret classified information.

I'm kidding, of course, George Mikan did not run a honeypot trap. Although once again,look up a photo of him. Imagine him doing that. That's why I keep doing bits on Mikan.

Where were we? Yes, Yugoslavian basketball. It was basically like an experimental lab fordeveloping basketball talent.

JOSIP GLAURDIC: So ironically, it's the closed market that is full of sort of genetic excellencethat breeds good competition, even though it's a communist country, and as a result, leads toexcellent national teams.

Years before Steph Curry and Klay Thompson were the Splash Brothers for the Warriors,there was Drazen and his Yugoslavian teammates, unleashing an aerial assault thatwould leave modern analytic apostles hyperventilating.

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JOSIP GLAURDIC: So Drazen Petrovic was, this is why he was so such a thrilling player towatch, he was so efficient and so, so committed. That was what made Drazen so special is thathe worked. I mean, he was so committed, so committed.

Drazen was still only 19 years old, but he was officially the biggest fish in the Sava River,the closest thing to a unifying hero in a country full of longstanding fractures alonginternal divisions.

Okay, a quick history lesson about one of the most interesting parts of the world.Yugoslavia came together after World War II as a federation of six republics: Slovenia,Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Bosnia, Herzegovina.

For decades, it was ruled over by President Josip Broz Tito. Or as they called him, simplyTito.

JOSIP GLAURDIC: Initially Yugoslavia was created as more Soviet than the Soviets. Tito'sregime was basically very doctrinaire, very committed to creating basically a communist country,and this didn't really fly with Stalin. Stalin basically disciplined Tito and kicked Yugoslavia out ofthe block, basically thinking that the regime is going to collapse because he simply will not beable to, economically and otherwise, hold the country together.

It turns out you don’t ‘out communist’ the biggest commies on the block.

JOSIP GLAURDIC: That's when Tito makes a far-reaching, desperate decision to bringYugoslavia closer to the West. And they appeal, out of necessity, they appeal to the UnitedStates, and they ask for assistance.

This was the 1950s. The height of the Cold War. Here was America’s chance to get afoothold in the region.

JOSIP GLAURDIC: Tito's regime is basically propped up by money from the United States. Thegoal is basically, Let’s create a palatable alternative to the Soviet bloc. The United States wasessential in keeping the regime afloat in the early period. I still have aunts and uncles thatremember the powdered milk and the powdered eggs and flour that came from America thatliterally kept them alive in the early 50s.

Perhaps the most surreal example of American influence was the enormous HaludovoPalace Hotel on the Croatian Island of Krk.

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Funded in part by Penthouse founder Bob Guccione, this sprawling retreat hadeverything: swimming pool, dance club, bowling alley, and, yes, even a Penthousecasino, where international celebrities were waited on by ‘Penthouse Pets’ in skimpyFrench maid uniforms.

I guess if you take a capitalist’s money, sometimes you get a bit more than you bargainedfor.

This basic arrangement between the Americans and Yugoslavians continued fordecades. Through nuclear escalation, multiple U.S. and Soviet leadership changes,Yugoslavia rode that knife’s edge.

But Drazen had other things on his mind. He just wanted to ball, racking up Player of theYear awards and championships.

And he was starting to hit his ceiling in his own country.

He had scored 112 points in a single game during a championship tournament, andaveraged 41.4 per game during the 85/86 season. That’s a ceiling.

But Drazen wasn’t allowed to leave for the NBA. However, in the words of Drazen’s agentat the time: “Every problem in Yugoslavia can be taken care of with the right amount ofmoney.”

So after the right amount of money hit the right hands, Petro entered the 1986 NBA Draft.And as the ‘Mozart of basketball,’ a prodigy from Europe, was drafted at the incrediblyhigh number of… 60. That’s right. 60th.

Some of the players drafted before him sound almost made up: Ron Kellogg? Anyoneremember him? Keith Colbert? Scott Dellegraccio? Alright, I actually did make that nameup.

But this was a different time. Foreign-born players had only started to make their way tothe NBA, and for a lot of the scouts, Europeans in particular were considered, well…softer than a George Gervin finger roll.

ZACH LOWE: There was a certain idea in NBA circles, an idea that European players andcoaches were very aware of, that, ‘OK, the big guys, sure. They can add something.’ There wasa suspicion about any guard. Were they going to be athletic enough for] a position that requiresa great deal of speed and athleticism, at least in the traditional terms that we think about it.

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But here’s the thing: No one had ever seen anything like Drazen before.

TODD BOYD: There was a difference between the way white guys from places like Yugoslaviaand Russia played basketball and white Americans played basketball.

Todd Boyd, professor at USC, and all-around media expert.

TODD BOYD: This is the time when the number of white Americans playing basketball issteadily decreasing. When I first started watching basketball, most teams were 50/50 black andwhite. Maybe 55/45. Then over time, the balance increased more. By the ‘90s, it was verydifferent.

But these Eastern European dudes, like Petro, were playing the game at a level that you didn'tsee from white American players, for people making associations based on race.

But all those European accolades didn’t matter when Drazen landed in Portland, becausethe Blazers, well, they were stacked at the wing.

ZACH LOWE: I mean, that was a team that was a Finals contender. Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter.They later acquired Danny Ainge, Jerome Kersey, they were not hurting for talent.

Drazen only knew how to play one way, and that was all out. But he was stuck at the endof the bench, so that energy has to go somewhere.

Blazers teammate Danny Ainge says that one time, between two-a-day practices, he andPetrovic went back to Petrovic’s apartment to get some rest between workouts. But notPetro. He climbed up on an exercise bike he’d just bought and started riding it at fullspeed for the entire break.

"Not playing bothered him more than anyone I ever met," Ainge said.

‘You think I’m soft? I’ll drain threes in your face. Lazy? I’ll keep working out until I break.Some privileged European in a league full of Black players? No, I fought for everythingI’ve got. I’m from a tough country constantly fighting to survive in the shadow of the IronCurtain.’

But meanwhile, back in Eastern Europe...

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ANCHOR: We interrupt this program for an NBC News special report. Here’s is GarettCuffley.

REPORTER: Good afternoon we have a late and truly a really sensational report comingin from East Germany…

Things were about to get messy. We’ll get into that after the break.

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ARCHIVAL FROM 1950sREAGAN: The crusade for freedom is your chance to fight communism. Join now bysending your contributions to General Clay, Crusade For Freedom, Empire StateBuilding, New York City...

Ronald Reagan first made political waves in the 40s and 50s as president of the ScreenActors Guild. He was a proud union man from the liberal bastion of Hollywood.

But behind closed doors, the Red Scare, that magical moment when the averageAmerican saw communists lurking around every corner, was quickly becoming adominant force in his life.

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: If a person consistently reads and advocates the views expressed in acommunist publication, he may be a communist...

See, it all started when FBI agents paid an unannounced visit to Reagan’s house in 1946,wanting him to spill the beans on all those Tinseltown communist sympathizers. AndRonnie, always the polite midwesterner, was more than happy to help. He quickly becamea trusted informant. He even had a codename: T-10.

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: If a person supports organizations which reflect communist teachings ororganizations labeled communist by the department of justice, she may be acommunist…

Soon Reagan was testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities --the cowboy turned red scare-monger.

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ANNOUNCER: If a person defends the activities of communist nations while consistentlyattacking the domestic and foreign policy of the United States, she may be acommunist...

In 1964, he barnstomed the country for extreme right-wing presidential candidate BarryGoldwater, delivering a speech tailor-made to his new image as a Cold War warrior.

ARCHIVALRONALD REAGAN: We're at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever facedmankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it's been said if we lose thatwar, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatestastonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.

Reagan was a true believer. An anti-pinko to his core. But he also was a salesman.

By the time he became President of the United States, some 30 years later, he’d evenmade it part of his presidential punchlines:

ARCHIVALREAGAN: My fellow Americans. I’m pleased to tell you I’ve signed legislation to outlawRussia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.

It’s a funny joke, hundreds of millions of people dying in a nuclear hellscape. Come on,quit being so serious.

We’ve all heard the usual narrative. The one with missiles and machismo, spycraft andStar Wars systems being launched into space. Rambo. *Rambo voice* “Hey, I’m notgoing to share my earnings, I’m no commie.” The one where Ronnie Reagan rode a Red,White and Blue horse into the center of Red Scare and started singing “The StarSpangled Banner” so beautifully that all of communism immediately shriveled up anddied.

ARCHIVALREAGAN: Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

But there’s another story about the end of the Cold War. One that has a lot to do withinternal Soviet troubles. And one where if the Americans do deserve some credit, it hasless to do with ballistics and more with, well...

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COMMERCIAL: *singing* There’s a blues that makes me feel good. Levi’s 501 blues…oh yeah!

That’s right, blue jeans, baby. American-made denim. Nothing says land of the free like apair of boot-cut Levi’s.

Blue jeans were considered a symbol of Western decadence in the Soviet Union, acapitalist extravagance. Anyone with a passport and suitcase, from diplomats anddignitaries to sailors pulling into port, was sneaking in enough denim to turn the wholecountry blue. And that was enough to freak out the people in power. “The Party.”

“Jean crimes,” as they were called, swept the nation. People were being stabbed,slashed, and robbed for a pair of pants. Tourists found themselves being offeredhundreds of rubles on the spot to buy the dungarees right off their behinds.

And the timing was no coincidence. An explosion of technology had transformed theSoviet Union in the 80s, just as it had everywhere else in the world. It was getting harderand harder for the party in the USSR to control the supply of the thing that reallymattered: information.

JONATHAN WEILER: It's often been argued that one of the really important factors, underlyingfactors, in ultimately drawing so many East Germans into the streets to protest theirgovernment, especially in 1989, was that a lot of them had access to West German television.

This is Jonathan Weiler, a professor of global studies at UNC Chapel Hill, and host of thepodcast Agony of Defeat.

JONATHAN WEILER: And they could see the extraordinary difference in standard of living andquality of life between West Germany and East Germany.

And this explosion of access helped set the stage for one more international export: theNBA.

Even at its very height, the U.S. and the Soviet Union couldn’t resist letting their rivalryplay out on the court.

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: Don’t forget, the Soviets really want to win one of these games, they’velost the first two, and this is a ballclub that represents the cream of the crop of the Soviet

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Republic, some near 300 million people. So they obviously have some great basketballplayers.

From chess to tennis to hockey, U.S. athletes were regularly going on tours of the Sovietbloc. By 1988, it was finally the rising stars of the NBA’s turn.

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: Meanwhile, the Hawks just kind of picked up, they came here in differentshifts and got here at different times in their offseason after being off for two months andhave won the first two games.

That’s right. The Atlanta Hawks once took a trip behind the Iron Curtain.

JEREMY WOO: David Stern in particular had been a globally minded thinker. This [collided] withthe Soviet Union. Obviously one of their big things was sports and athletic dominance.

This is Jeremy Woo, staff writer with Sports Illustrated.

JEREMY WOO: From the NBA standpoint, there was an opportunity to sort of spread the game,bridge that gap culturally.

Perfectly on cue, here comes players like Doc Rivers, Spud Webb, and “the HumanHighlight Reel” himself Dominique Wilkins, ready to show these Soviets how to hoop forreal.

JEREMY WOO: And I think Ted Turner being the owner of the Hawks was another big factor asto why they were the team that went. With TBS, I think they all saw an opportunity there to kindof spread the NBA and kind of grow the game in different ways.

And the trip really was bonkers.

JEREMY WOO: The accommodations were not great. They didn't take a charter flight. I wastold there were live animals on the flight.

Bug-infested practice courts, starving players bartering with each other for food.

But to the surprise of both sides, the Soviets and the American players actually hit it off,despite the language barrier.

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American players even invited the Soviets out for a night on the town which the KGBcovertly shut down by telling the Americans everything was closed.

Didn’t matter though. With this openness came friendship, and a new way of viewing theworld.

Soviet players like Sasha Volkov and Sarunas Marčiulionis were even allowed to jump tothe NBA.

If the Dream Team would eventually help turn the game global, this trip helped light thespark. Walls were breaking down, between basketball players and the two superpowers.

By the mid-80s, all the different types of power, hard and soft, had pushed the SovietUnion to a breaking point.

And U.S. leadership had softened its rhetoric, too, as Reagan and then George H.W. Bushfound a legitimate negotiating partner in Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.

There was just one problem: The entire Conservative movement had spent the previous40 years trying to take down the Soviet Union, but they never, y’know, figured out whatwould come next.

JONATHAN WEILER: There were also people in the West who were clamoring for the UnitedStates to provide the Soviet Union with some significant aid, something like a Marshall Plan, tostabilize the Soviet Union and to facilitate its transition to a kind of Western capitalist economy.The Bush administration thought about that, and they ultimately decided to just let things playout.

The result? Goodbye, Soviet Union. Hello, chaos.

JONATHAN WEILER: Even though they were concerned about the instability in the Sovietsystem at that time, they also were quite eager to see the system fall apart.

It’s one thing to push for the breakup of the Soviet Union, but no one was really thinkingabout picking up the pieces.

JOSIP GLAURDIC: We all sort of remember the elation of the time that the Berlin Wall wasfalling.

That’s Josip Glaurdic again, professor of political science.

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JOSIP GLAURDIC: Europe is going to finally be whole and free now that these old divisions areending. And President George H.W. Bush gives obviously his famous or infamous speech,about the “new world order” coming.

ARCHIVAL -GEORGE H.W. BUSH: A new world order can emerge. A new era, freer from the threatof terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice and more secure in the quest for peace. An erain which the nations of the world, east and west, north and south, can prosper and live inharmony.

JOSIP GLAURDIC: Where basically the big powers that are going to discipline middle powers inorder to keep the little powers stable.

But very quickly, this philosophy shifted to another part of the world.

ARCHIVALREPORTER: The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated. We’re seeing brightflashes all over the sky.

It’s hard to overstate just how much the first Gulf War changed everything.

For the entire 80s, the focus of U.S. foreign policy, and the entire public attention, was onthe Soviet empire in Eastern Europe, and U.S. meddling in Latin America.

Then in August 1990, just nine months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the cruise missilesstarted flying towards Baghdad. And it was like someone just changed the channel, andwe’ve never changed it back.

The Middle East became the only thing that mattered when it came to foreign policy forthe U.S.

Meanwhile, back in Eastern Europe, away from the prying eyes of Western attention,things were just falling apart.

A power vacuum had been left behind in Yugoslavia. And for Slobodan Milošević, theleader of Yugoslavia, this is almost a god send. He’s been waiting his whole career for amoment like this. A chance to turn the complex society of Yugoslavia into a singularSerbian state.

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JOSIP GLAURDIC: What if we sort of wrap our platform in the garbs of, “Hey, we're protectingYugoslavia, but actually, we pursue our true goal, which is basically, we want to control thebiggest possible part of Yugoslavia, violently if necessary.” And what follows throughout thesummer and fall of 1991 is the horribly bloody war.

We get essentially a war for territory that turns into basically an effort of the army of the BosnianSerbs, which is essentially the Yugoslav army, that starts sort of quote unquote “mopping up”territory, which essentially means ethnically cleansing these enclaves of Bosnian Muslims.

This was only the start of a full-blown war that touched every corner of the formerYugoslavia. Serbians slaughtering their fellow countrymen in the name of national unity.

Americans had failed to help the former Soviet Union financially as it was falling topieces. Now, they were failing to step in when Yugoslavia needed help.

The result was darkly predictable.

JOSIP GLAURDIC: The wars are horrible. They destroyed societies. They destroyedcommunities, not to mention that it killed 120, 130,000 people. They displaced some 3 or 4million people. I mean, in a country of about 20 million, 22 million that Yugoslvia was, about 4million people had the experience of being a refugee for a significant part of time.

Oh, and that decadent seaside hideaway? The one funded with Penthouse cash? It wasnow filled with terrified Croatian refugees.

At this exact same time, the Yugoslavian national team had been playing its very bestbasketball.

With Drazen Petrovic leading the way, teammates like Toni Kukoc, Dino Radja and VladeDivac, this was a team that was rewriting what was possible in European basketball.

Now that was all over. Their team ripped apart.

ARCHIVALREPORTER: That latest breakdown of talks would bring doom.

And soon, miles away from the war, the ‘Mozart of basketball’ would meet his ownhorrific end.

That’s coming up after the break.

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By 1991, the Yugoslavian national team, made up of Croatians, Serbians, Slovenians,Montenegrins, had been playing together for years. Now, their friends and relatives werefacing off against each other, their homeland falling apart, awash in blood.

''Nobody can understand this war,” Vlade Divac said at the time. “I’m Yugoslavian, and Ican’t understand.''

The fracturing had first become evident as the team accepted their gold medals at the1991 EuroBasket championship, following a dominant showing in which they won theirgames by an average of 21.6 points.

Now, as the Yugoslavian anthem played, Divac noticed that his teammate VelimirPerasovic wasn't singing. ''Why don't you sing?,' he asked.

“I shouldn't,” Perasovic answered.

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: A capacity crowd, 12,500 turning out in scores…

The 1992 Olympics, which was going to be the team’s crowning moment, now served asa symbol that brother had turned against brother. ''We have a team but no country,''Petrovic said at the time.

Vlade and Drazen, who were both playing professionally in the United States by then,couldn’t escape the tensions roiling their home country.

JACKIE MACMULLAN: They were together, they were friends on this Yugoslavia team, but thenwhen they had their civil war, the Serbs and the Croatians were on opposite ends. Theirrelationship was completely frayed.

Sports writer Jackie McMullan remembers it well.

JACKIE MACMULLAN: Drazen wouldn't speak to him because Vlade was Serbian. And Ialways thought, what a shame, you know, for all those players who had grown up together,trying to win as one.

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ERNIE JOHNSON: You were very close, played together in Yugoslavia. But you'reCroatian. He is Serbian. Have you spoken in the two times your teams have gottentogether?PETROVIC: No, we didn't spoke [sic]. And I was real close to him my first year when Iwas playing in Portland. But, you know, the things get rough in our country and, we didn'tspoke [sic] since then.JOHNSON: Is that because honestly you do not like Vlade Divac now or because youcan't allow yourself to talk to him?PETROVIC: I like Vlade, I think he's a real good guy, and he's a good basketball player,but you know, it's kind of a more political thing than anything else.

Only the newly formed Croatia managed to field a squad for the Olympics, with Drazenand Toni Kukoc.

Divac, and the rest of the Serbian players, with no team of their own, had to watch thecompetition from home.

It was under this dark shadow that Drazen finally had his coming out party. DreamTeamer John Stockton said Petrovic was the only player at the Olympics that year whoactually believed he could beat the US.

ZACH LOWE: And you know, they they pushed the U.S. pretty hard. Croatia got to the goldmedal game against the Dream Team. They finished obviously in the Silver, but it's one of thegreat What Ifs. What if we could reunite the country again just for sports? How good could thatteam have been?

For America, it was a triumphant moment, for its ideals and more importantly its brand.The last superpower of basketball and the world.

But as hard as things had become off the court, Drazen was finally proving to Americanaudiences what he could do on it. He followed up his stellar run at the Olympics with hisbest season as a pro, finally freed from the logjam in Portland.

KENNY ANDERSON: So he got traded to New Jersey Nets and that's where he launched hispro career.

Kenny Anderson, proud son of Queens, 14-year NBA vet, and Drazen’s teammate withthe Nets.

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KENNY ANDERSON: He never talked about what was going on in his country, to me. Henever talked to me. He just played the game. I really believe he wanted to just make hismark over in the NBA.

The USA may have been somewhat responsible for the hell his homeland was goingthrough, but it was also turning him into a basketball icon.

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: Petro! Got the shot off. Wow, what strength to use that pump to righthimself. 38 for Petro.

KENNY ANDERSON: And he got the opportunity to play a lot and to shoot a lot and to behimself with the New Jersey Nets. And it was great to see him performing on a higher level inthe NBA. And he just was a good guy.

Petro was a good guy who was finally scoring like he did in Europe. And when all elsefailed in the NBA, he had some other tricks as well.

KENNY ANDERSON: His under arms was smelly. He said that they would keep thedefense away from him. He wouldn't use deodorant and all that, because it would keepthe guys on defense off him.

Drazen’s basketball dreams were finally coming true. Third team All NBA. Plus, thedynamic trio of Kenny Anderson, Derrick Coleman and Drazen were poised to do somedamage in the East.

KENNY ANDERSON: We would have really held our own, and each year we was getting closerand closer. And I thought, you know, if he was coming back, we was all going to come back andI thought we was going to do it.

Drazen was poised to sign a new contract with the Nets, one that would make him thesecond-richest shooting guard in the NBA. The other was... who else? The face of Nike.His airness. Michael Jordan.

So that summer Petrovic made his way back to Europe. And with his girlfriend behind thewheel, a friend in the backseat, the three set off from Germany on the Autobahn.

Next stop, Croatia. Home. But they would never make it there.

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REPORTER: Petrovic was killed late yesterday when his car slammed into a truck nearMunich Germany in heavy rain. Drazen Petrovic was 28.

A car crash. Something that happens everyday. But this one would rob a new country ofits hero. An old country of its hero, too. Two teams of its star. And a sport of its future.

His girlfriend lost control, hit a truck. Drazen was killed on impact. He was just 28 yearsold.

Miro Juric, a young basketball player from Drazen’s home town, told the New York Times:"No grenade shook Šibenik as much as the news of your tragic death."

Another death in a country reeling from thousands of others.

JACKIE MACMULLAN: I actually remember. I was in my apartment. I got a phone call from myoffice and it said, “We think Drazen Petrovic has been killed.” I'm like, you've gotta be kiddingme. So I called Chuck Daly. Chuck Daly was the coach of the Nets at that time. I had Chuck'snumber, and I called him up and I said, “Chuck, please tell me this isn't true.” And he said, “Oh, Iwish I could. It's just the worst day ever.” And I thought, “Man. Yep. It sure is.”

KENNY ANDERSON: I was like, wow. I just, I froze for a minute. And I couldn't believe it. Justwas very shocking, very tough.

The Dream Team changed the game of basketball and the world, ushering in a new era ofAmerican cultural dominance. Suddenly you had villagers in the most remote parts ofChina wearing Michael Jordan T-shirts, that is, if they weren’t making them in sweatfactories in China for 25 cents an hour.

Globalism had arrived, and America, at least for now, had been declared the winner. We’dwon the Cold War, baby, without ever having to grapple with what it meant.

As for Drazen’s legacy, well, we see it everyday in the NBA.

ARCHIVALANNOUNCER: “Jokic has a chance to tie it. Oh! Jokic hits it”ANNOUNCER: “Luka magic is back, tossed in the circus shot!”

ZACH LOWE: And that's why when you talk to a lot of European players and coaches who bothbefore Drazen came and after, consider him, maybe he's not the best European player ever, I

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probably think Dirk Nowitzski is, but to them, he's the most important because he was the onewho busted that stereotype.

Before Drazen, players came from places like Wilmington, North Carolina; French Lick,Indiana; and the South Side of Chicago. These days, well...

ARCHIVALMONTAGE OF NBA HIGHLIGHT IN SEVERAL LANGUAGES

The wave started slowly at first, with guys like Drazen, Sabonis. Then you saw people likeManu Ginobili, an Argentinian lefty who combined a silky smooth jumper with thecraftiness to get to the hoop and slam it down hard on anyone who dared get in his way.

Now, cut to 2020. There was a pandemic raging around the world, and the NBA had beenforced to play their playoffs in a bubble on the Disney World campus in Florida.

It was against this backdrop that a series of dinners took place, the first one on theoutdoor patio at the Three Bridges Bar & Grill at Villa del Lago.

Present were some of the best players in the league. Players like Jusuf Nurkić and BobanMarjanović. Goran Dragić and Vlatko Čančar. Nikola Vučević, Ivica Zubac and MarioHezonja. And, yes, two potential future NBA MVPs in Nikola Jokić and Luka Dončić.

No one was worried during these dinners about who was from Serbia or who wasSlovenian, Croatian or Bosnian. These were the Balkans boys, all from countries thatwere once a part of a forgotten country Yugoslavia. And the thing that they wanted to talkabout, the thing that brought them all together, was basketball.

You want to talk about a Dream Team, you could do a lot worse.

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CREDITS

ADAM McKAY, host and executive producer

JODY AVIRGAN, executive producer and series editor

RAGHU MANAVALAN, senior producer

BRIAN STEELE, producer

SHANE MCKEON, assistant producer

KATHERINE SHOEMAKER, booking help

JASON HEILIG, archival research

WILL TAVLIN, fact-checking

ALISON SCHARY, legal

Mixing and sound design by JOANNA KATCHER at NICE MANNERS

Music composition by BEACON STREET

NUNA CHARAFEDDINE, production manager

HARRY NELSON, executive producer at Hyperobject

LAURA MAYER, executive producer at Three Uncanny Four

Special thanks to Hyperobject’s STACI ROBERTS-STEELE

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