Vlade Divac

Club playing career

Divac began playing basketball in his home town Prijepolje for the team KK Elan. He began his professional career in Yugoslavia playing for Sloga from Kraljevo, and was immediately noted for scoring 27 points against Crvena zvezda.

KK Partizan

In the summer of 1986, Divac was the top star of the basketball transfer season, and he ended up signing with Partizan for DM14,000.

In the 1986–87 Yugoslav First League season, with players like Divac, Aleksandar Đorđević, Žarko Paspalj, Željko Obradović, and with coach Duško Vujošević at the helm, Partizan had a "dream team", which won the Yugoslavian League title. In the subsequent 1987–88 FIBA European Champions Cup season (now called EuroLeague), the club failed to reach the top of the EuroLeague, after having lost to Maccabi Tel Aviv in the semifinal in Ghent. Jugoplastika, with Dino Rađa and Toni Kukoč, was a stronger team in the subsequent three years, reigning both in Yugoslavia and in Europe.

Divac had an unusual style compared to most other centers of his generation: despite his height, he possessed good mobility, had good control of the ball, and was a decent shooter. On occasion, he would also act as a play maker. His trademark moves included a mid-range shot at the top of the key and flip shots around the rim, while facing the complete opposite direction. His quirky moves complemented how he liked playing gags on the court: in the 1989 EuroBasket, he lifted teammate Zoran Radović for a slam dunk. In just four professional seasons in Europe, he became the most sought-after big man on the continent, after Arvydas Sabonis.

Los Angeles Lakers

Drafted into the NBA in 1989 by the Los Angeles Lakers, Divac became one of the first European players to have an impact in the league. Under the mentorship of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, he improved his play and adapted to the American style of basketball. Though he spoke no English, he quickly became popular among his teammates and the public for his charm and joviality. In the 1989–90 season, he was selected into the NBA All-Rookie Team.

Divac earned a reputation for flopping, or deceiving the officials into calling a foul on the other team by purposely falling to the floor upon contact with an opposing player. Veteran NBA forward P. J. Brown claimed that Divac might have been the best of all time at flopping. Divac freely admitted doing so, adding that he usually did it when he felt like the officials had missed some calls and owed him. However, when the NBA instituted anti-flopping penalties in 2012, Divac expressed his support for such rules, stating that he felt players after him were "overdo[ing] it" with respect to flopping. Ian Thomsen, a Sports Illustrated columnist, grouped Divac with fellow international players Anderson Varejão and Manu Ginóbili as the players who "made [flopping] famous", exaggerating contact on the court in a manner analogous to diving in FIFA games.

Charlotte Hornets

On July 1, 1996, Divac was traded to the Charlotte Hornets for the draft rights to Kobe Bryant and played two seasons there until signing with the Sacramento Kings in July 1998.

Two games with KK Crvena zvezda

During the 1998–99 NBA lockout, in January 1999, Divac played 2 games for Partizan's eternal rival KK Crvena Zvezda, in the 1998–99 EuroLeague season.

His debut for the crveno-beli took place mid-season, on Orthodox Christmas, versus a heavily favoured Žalgiris side led by Tyus Edney, Mindaugas Žukauskas, Saulius Štombergas, and Jiří Zídek Jr.. Supported by a raucous home crowd and energized by Divac's arrival, as well as his 16 points and 8 rebounds, Crvena zvezda pulled off a 77-69 memorable upset win.

Divac's brief stint with Crvena zvezda, for which he reportedly got paid US$250,000 per game, immediately became a sore point with KK Partizan fans, who unfurled a banner calling him a traitor, at their club's next game.

The issue of playing for the hated cross-town rival reignited several years later, when Divac returned to KK Partizan as club president. At the time, he stated his decision to play for Crvena zvezda was "a mistake".

Sacramento Kings

He then signed as a free agent with the Sacramento Kings where he played for six seasons alongside fellow countryman Peja Stojaković. Teamed with Stojaković, Hedo Türkoğlu, Chris Webber and Mike Bibby; Divac revitalized the Sacramento Kings franchise. The Kings rose in the NBA ranks, becoming a perennial playoff contender and eventually a championship contender, leading the league in wins in 2001–02. The Kings, however, could not get past the Los Angeles Lakers, who beat them in a 7-game series in 2002.

Return to the Lakers

After the 2003–04 NBA season, Divac became a free agent. He signed a deal to return to the Lakers, part of Mitch Kupchak's plan to overhaul Laker basketball. The Lakers, following a defeat in the NBA Finals, had traded away or released most of their players, including Shaquille O'Neal, Gary Payton, Karl Malone, Derek Fisher, and more; Divac was supposed to help fill that void.

However, Divac suffered back problems and could not play most of the season, and even when he returned, could only play about nine minutes per game, averaging 2.3 points per game and 2.1 rebounds per game in 15 games, he played 8 games early in the season and 7 more in the final month of the season.

On 14 July 2005, 37-year-old Divac announced his retirement, ending his sixteen-year NBA and twenty-two-year professional basketball career. Divac accepted a position with the Lakers as a European liaison to help with scouting overseas.

Retirement

The Kings retired his No. 21 jersey in a ceremony on March 31, 2009. Over his 16 years in the NBA, Divac earned over $93,000,000 in salary. In September 2009, he played for the "NBA Generations" team in the 2009 NBA Asia Challenge, a series of exhibitions against Korean Basketball League and Philippine Basketball Association players.

National team

In summer 1986, at 18, right after signing for KK Partizan, Divac debuted for the senior Yugoslavia national basketball team at the 1986 FIBA World Championship in Madrid, on invitation by the head coach Krešimir Ćosić. However, the excellent rookie's performance was spoiled by the event in the semi-finals against the Soviet Union. Forty-five seconds before the end, Yugoslavia had a comfortable lead of 9 points, but the Soviets scored two three-pointers within a few seconds and cut the difference to 3 points. Yugoslavia tried to hold the ball for the remaining time, opting to continue the play with throw-ins instead of free throws following fouls, but with only 14 seconds left, Divac committed a double dribble, the Soviets were awarded the ball, and tied the score with another three-pointer. In the overtime, the Soviets easily prevailed against the shocked Yugoslavs, who had to be content with the bronze.

The next year, Divac participated in the team that took the gold at the FIBA Junior World Championship (since split into separate under-19 and under-21 events) in Bormio, Italy. That event launched the young generation of Yugoslavian basket ballers, also featuring stars like Rađa and Kukoč, regarded as likely the best in history. Before the breakup of Yugoslavia, they would also take the titles at EuroBasket 1989 and the 1990 FIBA World Championship in Argentina, where they were led by Dražen Petrović, as well as the EuroBasket 1991 title, with Aleksandar Đorđević at point guard.

When Yugoslavia won the gold in the 1990 FIBA World Championship, fans rushed onto the court. One of them was holding a Croatian flag, one of the six republics that made up Yugoslavia. Divac claims that he told the man that he should not be waving that flag, since this was a win for Yugoslavia. Divac claims the man made a derogatory remark about the Yugoslav flag, at which point Divac took his flag from him. This happened during a very tense time where nationalistic pride was threatening to tear Yugoslavia apart and ignite a war. The taking of the flag made Divac a hero to Serbs, and a villain to Croatians. Divac has stated that he did not mean it as an act against Croatia and he would have taken away a Serbian flag if a Serb fan had done the same.

This action, along with the Yugoslav Wars, alienated Divac from many of his former Croatian friends, particularly Dražen Petrović, whom he considered his best friend. When Yugoslavia won EuroBasket 1995, and Croatia won bronze, Croatia, still at war with Serbs from Croatia, walked off the podium during the medal ceremony. The teams had not faced each other in the tournament.

KK Partizan

Yugoslavia national team

NBA

Administrative career

Through the twilight of his playing career and afterwards, Divac focused on three fields: humanitarian work, sport management, and investment.

KK Partizan

In late 2000, following the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević whose policies Divac had been openly critical of throughout mid-to-late 1990s, Divac and former teammate Predrag Danilović took over their former club KK Partizan. They did so on initiative by Ivica Dačić, the club's outgoing president and, more importantly, a suddenly marginalized politician who, due to his association with Milošević, was forced to leave his post at the club. Seeing that various state-owned companies and community property were being taken over in a dubious manner during the power vacuum that resulted from régime change, Dačić saw it prudent to bring the club's two former greats as a safeguard against the same happening to KK Partizan. Divac became the club's president while Danilović took the vice-president role.

Freshly retired from playing, Danilović was actually running the club's day-to-day operations since Divac was still very actively involved with the Sacramento Kings at the time. The head coach they inherited, Darko Russo, finished out the 2000–01 season before they decided in summer 2001 to bring back their mentor Duško Vujošević to be the new head coach.

Though the duo never stated so outright, their additional motivation in getting involved with KK Partizan again was perceived to be gaining the upper hand on the club's eventual privatisation process once the new Law on Sports gets passed in the Serbian parliament. Since the exact ownership structure of a publicly owned KK Partizan wasn't and still isn't really clear, potential investors decided to stay away, at least until the law appears. Divac and Danilović appeared pretty much out of nowhere in this regard but enjoyed plenty of fan and public support because most preferred to see their beloved club owned and operated by its former stars rather than a faceless corporation or a group of politicians, managers or businessmen close to the ruling coalition. However, after a few years the duo ran out of patience and pulled out of the venture in late 2004 because it became too much of a financial burden with no end-goal in sight. While he stopped performing any official functions at the club, Divac continues to be involved with it in a lesser capacity.

LA Lakers

From 2005 to 2006, Divac was employed as European scout for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Real Madrid

In June 2006, through his friendship with Predrag Mijatović, Divac linked up with Ramón Calderón as part of the lawyer's candidate bid for the presidency of Real Madrid polideportivo. When Calderón closely won the club elections on July 2, 2006, Divac was introduced as the head of operations at Real Madrid basketball club.

However, Divac's role in the club's day-to-day operations was largely symbolic, and even he himself admitted as much in a March 2007 interview for Croatian weekly Globus: "I literally do nothing and I only serve as part of the royal club's image. I only accepted the job because of Mijatović, who is currently the football director at Real".

Olympic Committee of Serbia

Divac was proposed in 2000 as Yugoslavia's candidate for the Sport Commission of the International Olympic Committee in spring 2000. This candidature was withdrawn under pressure from Milošević regime. In February 2009, Divac ran for presidency of the Olympic Committee of Serbia against incumbent president Ivan Ćurković. He won the race after Ćurković withdrew just before the scheduled voting. In November 2012, he was re-elected as the sole candidate; the end of his second mandate coincides with the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

In December 2014, Kosovo was accepted as a full member of the International Olympic Committee. Divac and the Serbian Olympic Committee have been criticised, chiefly by the Democratic Party of Serbia, for failing to take any effort to prevent that. Divac stated that he is not happy with the decision of the IOC, but could not have prevented it as it had already been made, and said he would accept it "in the interest of the athletes".

On May 9, 2017, he was succeeded by Serbian former basketball coach Božidar Maljković on position of the president of Olympic Committee of Serbia.

Sacramento Kings

In March 2015, Divac was hired as the vice president of basketball and franchise operations by the Sacramento Kings. He was promoted as vice president of basketball operations and general manager on 31 August 2015. In March 2016, Divac signed a multi-year contract extension with the organization.

Investments

Divac has been involved in many non-basketball endeavors while still actively playing in the NBA, and more so after he retired. He is an active restaurant investor in the Sacramento, California area. However, his attempts to make major investments in Serbia failed, for a variety of reasons.

The most notable affair was a highly publicized business venture—takeover bid of profitable beverage producer Knjaz Miloš. Divac's company "Apurna", in a joint venture with French dairy giant Danone, ostensibly proposed the best bid, but the takeover was aborted by the Serbia's Securities Commission, because Danone/Apurna allegedly offered extra money to small shareholders. In the repeated bid, Divac and Danone eventually withdrew and the sale went to FPP Balkan Ltd., a privatization fund from the Cayman Islands. The entire messy affair caused great friction within the Serbian government, wide speculation about corruption, resignation of the Securities Commission chief, and even a police investigation.

Another similar, though less spectacular, episode happened with 2005 Divac's attempt to take over the Večernje novosti, a Serbian high-circulation daily. He made an agreement with small shareholders to take over the company by means of registering a new company with joint capital, which would increase the share capital. However, the Serbian Government intervened and halted what should have been a mere technical move. While the attempted takeover was a "backdoor" one indeed, it was legal and similar cases had already happened. The government ostensibly feared lack of control over the influential daily. Even though the Supreme Court of Serbia eventually ruled in Divac's favor, he withdrew from the contest, citing "friendly advice" by unnamed persons. Embittered, he decided to stop his attempts to invest in Serbia: "All of this is ugly and I'm very upset... I realized that there's no place for me in Serbia and my friends can meet me in Madrid from now on... In Serbia, some different rules are in effect, and I can't conceive them".

However, that turned out not to be true, as in October 2007 Divac got legally registered as 100% owner of Voda Voda, a bottled water brand previously owned by businessman Vojin Đorđević. That transaction was also followed by a stir of controversy, as Đorđević publicly accused Divac of deceit, asserting that he broke a gentlemen's agreement they had, and questioning the validity of the contract that Divac presented to the Serbian Business Registers Agency. The circumstances surrounding the deal (as of November 2007) are still unclear: Divac claims that he indeed loaned some money to the Đorđević's Si&Si company, which was in financial troubles, and after Đorđević failed to fulfill his part of the deal, just used the contract, already properly signed by Đorđević, to claim ownership of the company.

Humanitarian work

Divac is a humanitarian worker, focusing on aid to children worldwide and refugees in his home country. Along with six Serbian basketball teammates, Divac established the charity called Group Seven, later renamed to "Divac's Children Foundation", and works closely with International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC), helping them to raise around US$500,000 for humanitarian assistance in Serbia since 1997. Divac's own foundation, presided by his wife Snežana, provided over $2,500,000 in humanitarian assistance through 1998–2007.

In late 2007 Divac founded a humanitarian organization, "You Can Too" (Serbian: Можеш и ти/Možeš i ti), bent on assisting the refugees in Serbia. Serbia has around 500,000 refugees from the 1990s Yugoslav wars, making it the country with the largest refugee problem in Europe. Around 7,800 of those people still live in collective centers under poor conditions, so the organization has vouched itself to buy abandoned countryside houses, in an attempt to finally solve their accommodation problem.

From September 21 to 23, 2007, Divac organized an official farewell from active basketball career in his hometown Prijepolje and Belgrade, simultaneously promoting the "You Can Too" campaign. The spectacle culminated in gathering of Divac and his worldwide friends in front of 10,000 people outside the National Assembly building.

In popular culture

In the early 1990s, the song "Vlade Divac" by Belgrade band Deca Loših Muzičara, devoted to his transfer to Lakers, was a big hit; the band finally got to personally meet Divac and perform the song with him on his farewell party in 2007.

During his time with the Lakers, Divac's popularity and marketing potential, in addition to his entertaining and good-natured personality, were picked up on by the American TV industry. As a result, he appeared quite a few times on Los Angeles-based late night programmes such as The Arsenio Hall Show and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. In 1990, he was featured in a commercial with Laker teammates A. C. Green and Mychal Thompson for the Schick brand razors company. He also appeared in American sitcoms Married... with Children and Coach, as well as in the short lived Good Sports sitcom. On the big screen Divac took part in basketball-based movies Eddie, Space Jam and Juwanna Mann. Later in his career, he appeared on Larry King Live in 1999 and The Late Late Show in 2002.

In Serbia, all throughout his playing career, Divac regularly appeared in commercials pitching products ranging from Atlas Beer to Société Générale Bank mortgage credit plans. He appeared in a national TV commercial in the United States alongside former NBA star Darryl Dawkins for Taco Bell.

Divac appeared as a special guest on Eurovision 2008. He threw a ball into the audience, which marked the beginning of televoting.

Divac features in the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary Once Brothers, where he discusses the exploits of the Yugoslavia national basketball team in the late 1980s and early 1990s and how the Yugoslav Wars tore them apart, especially in context of his broken friendship with Croatian player Dražen Petrović.

Divac appears in Boris Malagurski's documentary film The Weight of Chains, in which he talks about the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

Personal life

Divac and his wife, Snežana, have two sons, Luka and Matija, and an adopted daughter, Petra, whose biological parents were killed by Kosovo Liberation Army snipers during the Kosovo War.

Movies

Television