Petrovic, Drazen

▪ 1994

      Croatian basketball player (b. Oct. 22, 1964, Sibenik, Yugos.—d. June 7, 1993, near Ingolstadt, Germany), won two Olympic silver medals, first for Yugoslavia (1988) and then for independent Croatia (1992), before signing on as one of the National Basketball Association's (NBA's) hottest young shooting guards. Petrovic, a 1.95-m (6-ft 5-in) powerhouse, turned down an offer from the University of Notre Dame at the age of 19 in order to remain in Europe. He played one season (1988-89) in Spain, leading Real Madrid to the 1989 European Cup title. At the end of that season, the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers bought out his contract and selected him in the players draft. In January 1991 he was traded to the New Jersey Nets, where he became one of the league's top three-point shooters, averaging 22.3 points per game in his last season. He was returning to his family's home in Zagreb after playing for Croatia in a European championship qualifying tournament in Poland when the car in which he was riding crashed into a truck on a rain-slick road between Nürnberg and Munich. Petrovic was lionized as a national hero in Croatia, where his funeral drew thousands of mourning fans.

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