Dražen Petrović (Croatian pronunciation: [drǎʒen pětroʋitɕ]; 22 October 1964 – 7 June 1993) was a Yugoslav and Croatian professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he initially achieved success playing professional basketball in Europe in the 1980s with Cibona and Real Madrid before joining the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1989.
A star on multiple international basketball stages, Petrović earned two silver medals (1988, 1992) and one bronze (1984) at the Summer Olympic Games, a gold (1990) and a bronze (1986) at the FIBA World Cup, and a gold (1989) and a bronze (1987) at the FIBA EuroBasket. He was the FIBA World Championship MVP in 1986 and the FIBA EuroBasket MVP in 1989. With Cibona Zagreb, Petrović also won two consecutive EuroLeague championships in 1985 and 1986. He first represented Yugoslavia's senior national team and later Croatia's senior national team. He earned four Euroscars and was named Mr. Europa twice. In 1985, he received the Golden Badge award for the best athlete of Yugoslavia.
Seeking a bigger arena after his career started in Europe, Petrović joined the NBA in 1989, as a member of the Portland Trail Blazers. After playing mostly off the bench that year, Petrović experienced a breakthrough following a trade to the New Jersey Nets. While starting for the Nets, he became one of the league's best shooting guards, and his .4374 three-point field goal percentage ranks fourth in NBA history. He was named one of FIBA's 50 Greatest Players in 1991. On 7 June 1993, Petrović's career and life were cut short after he died in a car accident in Germany at the age of 28.
In 1993, Petrović's jersey number 3 was retired by the Nets, and the Dražen Petrović Basketball Hall was named in his honor. He also received the Olympic Order in 1993. In 2002, he was posthumously enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2006, the Dražen Petrović Award was created in his honor. In 2007, he was posthumously inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame. He was named one of the 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors in 2008. In 2013, he was voted the best European Basketball player in history, by players at the 2013 FIBA EuroBasket.
Petrović is considered to have helped usher in today's flood of European players in the NBA. In Croatia, he is viewed as a national hero.
Born in Šibenik, Yugoslavia (present-day Croatia), Dražen Petrović was the second child of Jovan "Jole" Petrović, a police officer, and Biserka (née Mikulandra), a librarian. His father was born in a Serb family in Zagora, near Trebinje in Bosnia and Herzegovina. His mother was born in Bilice, near Šibenik, and was from a traditional conservative Croat family, devoutly Catholic. The couple's eldest child, Aleksandar, was the first to play basketball and rose to become one of the top point guards in the former Yugoslavia. The Petrović brothers are second cousins to the Serbian basketball player Dejan Bodiroga.
At the age of 13, Petrović started playing in the youth selections of the local club Šibenka; at the age of 15, he had already made the club's first team, just as Šibenka had earned a place in the Yugoslav national first division. With young Petrović as the star of the team, Šibenka reached the final of the third level Pan-European club competition, the FIBA Korać Cup twice (1981–82 and 1982–83), where they lost to the French League club Limoges CSP both times. In 1983, the 18-year-old Petrović hit two free throws in Šibenka's victory over Bosna Sarajevo in the final playoff game of the Yugoslavian League's 1982–83 season's club championship. However, on the day after the club won the championship, the Basketball Federation of Yugoslavia stripped the title from Šibenka, because of irregularities in refereeing. The league's championship was then awarded to Bosna, after Šibenka refused to play in a rematch.
Petrović increased his scoring numbers in each successive season that he played with Šibenka. In the 1979–80 Yugoslav FFL season, he scored 13 points in 16 games, for an average of 0.8 points per game. In the 1980–81 Yugoslav FFL season, he scored 39 points in 20 games, for an average of 2.0 points per game. In the 1981–82 Yugoslav FFL season, he scored 392 points in 24 games, for an average of 16.3 points per game. In the 1982–83 Yugoslav FFL season, he scored 758 points in 31 games, for an average of 24.5 points per game. In total, he scored 1,202 points in 91 games played with Šibenka in the Yugoslav first division, for a scoring average of 13.2 points per game.
After a year's mandatory service in the Yugoslav military, Petrović joined his older brother Aco and moved to Cibona Zagreb, to form what was at that time, the best back court duo in Europe. In his first season in Cibona, Petrović won both the national Yugoslav League championship and the Yugoslav National Cup title. In national domestic league play, in the 1984–85 Yugoslav FFL season, Petrović averaged 32.5 points per game.
On 6 December 1984, in the 1984–85 season of Europe's top-level club competition, the FIBA European Champions Cup (EuroLeague), Petrović scored 44 points in a game against the Spanish League club Real Madrid. He scored 29 of the 44 points in the second half of the game. Petrović also scored 36 points in the league's 1985 Final against Real Madrid. Cibona won the game, by a score of 87–78, and the win brought the club their first top-tier level European Champions Cup title. That season, Petrović scored a total of 463 points in 15 games played, for a scoring average of 30.9 points per game.
On 5 October 1985, in a Yugoslav First Federal League game against Union Olimpija Ljubljana, Petrović scored 112 points, in Cibona's 158–77 blowout win. He scored 67 of the 112 points in the first half of the game. During the game, Petrović shot 40/60 from the field, 10/20 from 3-point range, and 22/22 from the free-throw line. The 112 points scored was the most points ever scored in a single game in the history of the Yugoslav First Federal League. It broke the league's previous single-game scoring record of 74 points, which was set in 1962, by Radivoj Korać. Korać achieved that record while playing with OKK Beograd, in a game against Mladost Zagreb.
Olimpija Ljubljana had failed to fulfill their player registration administrative obligations in time for the game. Olimpija general manager Radovan Lorbek was reportedly late with submitting a registration letter to the Basketball Federation of Yugoslavia (KSJ) headquarters in Belgrade. That rendered their entire men's first team roster ineligible for the Yugoslav First Federal League's regular season opening game, and forced them to instead field players for the game from their youth systems. Olimpija didn't have an under-18 youth squad that season so the club went to Zagreb to play the game with younger players. in the under-16 and under-17 age groups, which included: Igor Đurović, Matjaž Strmole, Jože Maček, Dag Kralj, Tine Erjavec, Jure Zorčič, Gregor Stražiščar, Andrej Novina, and Tine Merzelj.
Cibona, for their part, decided to use a mixed roster for the game, consisting of players from their youth system, plus their senior men's team's twenty-one-year-old Dražen Petrović, who broke Korać's single-game Yugoslav League scoring record of 74 points. Petrović scored 112 points in the game; before the game, he had reportedly announced his intention to leave the game once he had surpassed Korać's 74 points record. Petrović was one of only five Cibona players to score that day.
From November 1985, Petrović began partnering in the backcourt with another high-scoring player, newly arrived shooting guard Danko Cvjetićanin, brought in as replacement for Aco Petrović who was away serving his mandatory Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) stint.
Overall, over the 1985–86 Yugoslav League regular season and playoffs, Petrović scored a total of 1,241 points in 30 games played, for a scoring average of 41.4 points per game. That season, Petrović also won another Yugoslav National Cup title with Cibona. On 7 February 1986, Petrović scored 55 points in a Yugoslav Cup game against Union Olimpija Ljubljana. He also scored 46 points in the 1986 Yugoslav Cup's Final against Cibona's old rivals Bosna Sarajevo.