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Drazen Petrovic was once named the Mozart of basketball. That was because he was a young genius in sports, as Wolfgang Amadeus had been in music.

Petrovic was born in 1964 in Sibenik, a little adriatic city which at that time belonged to Yugoslavia and now is part of Croatia. So we can say that Drazen was both Yugoslavian and Croatian. Being only a little boy, a doctor told his parents he would never been able to do any sports, and that it was possible that he had to spend his whole life in a wheelchair, because of a waist problem. A few years later he had become one of the greatest stars in European basketball history. It was his older brother Alexander, also a professional player and nowadays coaching in Croatia, who made him feel the passion for basketball.

Being only sixteen years old he made his debut in the Yugoslavian first division, with the team of his hometown. A few years later he left to sign with a bigger club, Cibona Zagreb (where his brother was playing), and it was there where he won two European Cups, beating Real Madrid and Zalgiris Kaunas, and beginning a great rivalry with the Spanish team that lasted for four years. Just until he left Zagreb to sign with… Real Madrid.

In Madrid he played one season, and after a long summer affair, he decided to go to the NBA, to play with Portland Trail Blazers, finishing his multi-year contract with the Spanish team a lot of time before it had to expire.

Drazen Petrovic played four years in the NBA, one and a half in Portland and two and a half in New Jersey, becoming the first European player in become an NBA star coming from out of the United States.

With the National Team of Yugoslavia, Petrovic won two European (1989 and 1991) and one World Championship (1990), plus a silver in 1988 Olympic Games. With Croatia, silver in Barcelona ‘92, behind the great USA Dream Team.

With his clubs, two European Cups with Cibona Zagreb, one Cup Winners European Cup with Real Madrid, plus a few more titles like Leagues and National Cups. In the NBA, he played the Final with Portland in his first year, becoming the first European player in an NBA Final.

Best scorer in Yugoslavia several years, also once in Spain, a few times with his National Team, top scorer of New Jersey in his last season in NBA,… Had in Europe more than 50 or 60 points in a few games, and in the Yugoslavian league he had once 117 points in one match.

The magic moments he made fans live, and the great records Petrovic set, are the most important reason of why he was a great sports star and became so famous. But there are other reasons.

His behavior in the court, when he was competing, was terrible for rivals and encouraging for his teammates and fans. He used to rise his fist to the fans of his team, when playing at home, to celebrate every shot he scored. The fans used to get crazy when he did that. And he liked to use “trash talking” during the games with his opponents, even sometimes using bad words in their language to make the biggest damage. But everybody that really met him out of the courts, defines him as shy, generous, funny, a great person in his ordinary life. Madrid fans hated him for four years when he played for Cibona Zagreb, and then, when he signed for them, they loved him and it was Barcelona fans that felt that hatred for a year.

He also became a symbol because he was a really hard worker, and every time he arrived to a new team, the first thing he used to do was ask for the keys of the gym and the weight room to be able to work by himself whenever he wanted. He used to stay taking five hundred shots after every practice every day of his career.

In 1993, after playing for his National Team (Croatia) to qualify for the European Championship, he decided not to go back home with the rest of the team. They had been playing in Germany, so he and his girlfriend, and another woman friend of her, decided to rent a car and go back to Croatia driving and doing some tourism through the country. A truck out of control took to an end the life of one of the greatest basketball legends when he was only 28 years old.

Today, 15 years later, he is still remembered by all the fans that had the luck of seeing him playing. In Sibenik, Zagreb, Madrid,… every year in the anniversary of his death, there are events organized to honour his memory. And in Zagreb, there’s also a museum, and a square with his name. The gym where his former team still plays nowadays, is also named Drazen Petrovic.

If you have the chance to go to Zagreb, maybe walking around you would find the restaurant he owned when he was playing there. Its name: “Amadeus”.