Vlade And Drazen Sitting In A Tree, U-N-I-T-I-N-G (The Balkans)

The "30 For 30" about Vlade Divac And Drazen Petrovic premieres tonight. It's called Once Brothers, and depending on who you ask, it's either powerful or tripe. Quality aside, we'll be watching because we like Vlade and Drazen.

Vlade Divac was an incredibly fun player to watch during the late-90s runs of the Sacramento Kings. He passed like a point guard, played like a pitbull, and—most importantly—never backed down from Shaq. Furthermore, he was a large part of the influx of international players we have today. While that may include Frédéric Weis, I'll still be talking about Dirk Nowitzki twenty years from now.

But the person I should have been talking about decades hence was Drazen Petrovic. I remember reading Basketball for Dummies and there being a really lengthy section on Petrovic by Digger Phelps. Phelps wanted Drazen to come play for him at Notre Dame; he almost did, but ended up remaining in Europe to play professionally. When he finally did make it to the NBA, first with the Blazers, then as a legitimate star for the Nets, it looked like he was destined for greatness. He had a memorable showdown against Michael Jordan in 1992, months after getting a Silver medal in the Barcelona games playing for the only team that came within a hairsbreadth of the Dream Team.

I mean, this is akin to Reggie Miller against the Knicks.

We all know the rest of the story: What might've been? These days, Petrovic is known more for haunting NBA Jam. But it's nice that "30 For 30" is using their power and reach for a story like this, instead of Four Days In October, even if there's the possibility that this ends up as the documentary-ized Brian's Song. So, let's all sit down and pray that this has some rare footage that we couldn't just find on YouTube.

Or we could all just watch the baseball game.

*****

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. See you tomorrow? I'm not sure if Emma's here later or not. Now, for something from a band that sounds Eastern European-y.