Here’s a wonderful and emotionally gripping tale about the highlight of Yugoslavian basketball, the downfall of Yugoslavia and one very close friendship retold through the story of Vlade Divac and late Dražen Petrović who were “Once Brothers” which is also the title of the documentary.
Dražen was surely the best player in Europe at the time and many consider him all time best. I remember his games, he was amazing. I surely haven’t seen anyone in Europe play that good and I’m a basketball fan for almost 30 years. Really, a Mozart of basketball, as the film puts it. Those were the times when basketball was more about creativity, elegance and technique and less about raw strength, body mass and fat contracts. After accepting the challenge of playing in the NBA for the Portland Blazers, he struggled because he wasn’t given enough play time to show his amazing talent and skills, and he apparently had to go through another hardening phase. His friend Vlade Divac, an amazing player himself was 3.5 years his junior, considered Dražen the idol in his youth. Vlade went to LA Lakers the same year as Dražen and, even he knew no word of English, managed to integrate more quickly, get more attention and more minutes on the court. More than anything else, this documentary tells the story about their unique relationship and unique times they went through together and away from each other. In a way, it explains how normal people, just as these two amazing athletes, were estranged one from another by circumstances beyond their control.
Because of all the tensions that troubled everyone in ex-Yugoslavia from the times of its painful breakup, this is one of the heartbreaking stories that was waiting to be told until this documentary was finally made.
If you want to learn more about Yugoslavia, puzzling relationship between Serbs and Croats, the most powerful national basketball team at the time, if you’re ready to have your heart touched, or if you need to see a very nice documentary - this is the one to watch.
This story is of special importance to me. I was born and grew up in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. My father is Serb, mother Croatian. I have relatives in Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia - all over the place. I have distant ancestors from Montenegro even Greece. You could say that the Yugoslavia and the Balkans flow in my veins. Up until the Yugoslav Wars (looks really scary seeing a plural here) I was spending my summer vacations with my wider family in our family house on the Adriatic coast near Split, place where other basketball stars like Toni Kukoč and Toni Rađa come from. I was playing and training basketball at KK Partizan, European Champion in 1992 and the team where Vlade Divac grew to be such a great player. You can try to imagine in how many ways this documentary resonates with me.
So if you want to see the entire film, you’ll find he first of six parts embedded above, while you can also watch here the remaining parts two, three, four, five, and six by watching them in a pop out window.
Enjoy!
p.s. Kudos to ESPN “30 for 30” documentary series for making and NBA Entertainment for producing this documentary and, last but not least, to Vlade for pulling this out. Also thanks to Belgraded blog for being an early reminder about this documentary.
