Did you guys see the 30 for 30 show the other night? It was great. It was called "Once Brothers" and it was about the Yugoslavian National Basketball team from the mid 80's. The documentary is narrated by Vlade Divac and he talks about how they all started and how they all progressed. They discuss how great the team was before the Yugoslavian Civil War started. They were considered the real dream team when it came to international basketball. The team was made up by Vlade Divac, Toni Kukoc, Dino Radja, and the best player in all of Europe, Drazen Petrovic.
They discuss how all of these guys were best friends and how no one could beat them. Valde and Drazen both went into the NBA at the same time and started the "European Invasion" into the NBA. Vlade took off in Los Angeles while Drazen rode the pine in Portland. Drazen didn't get his chance to show America how good he was until he was traded to the nets. Then he took off.
The main story of the documentary is how the civil war affected the team and the relationship between the players. Vlade was a Serbian while the other players were Croatian. After they won a World championship for Yugoslavia, a fan ran onto the court with a Croatian flag. Vlade ran over to the guy and grabbed the flag out of his hands and went on to celebrate with his teammates. He said that they were not Croatians or Serbians, but Yugoslavians and they should celebrate together. When the team got back to Yugoslavia, Vlade was treated like a criminal.
After this, the separation of players began and probably the greatest team ever was finished. When all of these players went to the NBA, none of them could talk to Vlade because he was Serbian. These guys were best friends one day and the next day they couldn't talk to each other anymore.
It was a great documentary and highly recommend that you all watch it when you can. I think it's on Youtube? I'm sure you can find it somewhere on the internet or ESPN.
I knew Petrovic was good, I didn't know he was as good as they showed in this documentary. He was housing Jordan with ease. Of course we all know what happened with Petrovic. It was a sad ending to what could have been an amazing career.
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