Dražen Petrović

The Mozart of Basketball — Croatia's greatest player whose NBA career was just beginning when he died at 28.

Dražen Petrović was born in Šibenik, Croatia in 1964. He was Europe's greatest player before joining the NBA — winning three EuroBasket championships and multiple club titles. Portland Trail Blazers selected him in the third round of the 1986 NBA Draft and he joined them in 1989 aged 25. His NBA career was tragically brief — he died in a car accident in Germany in June 1993 aged 28, just as he was establishing himself as one of the NBA's elite scorers. In his final two New Jersey seasons he averaged 20.6 and 22.3 points per game respectively — among the highest averages in Nets history. His combination of European technical skill, three-point shooting precision and competitive ferocity made him one of the most complete guards in the league at the time of his death. He won Olympic silver with Yugoslavia at Seoul 1988 and silver with Croatia at Barcelona 1992 — a team he helped lead to his first major international achievement. He was posthumously inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002. His death at 28 remains one of basketball's most profound losses — a player at the beginning of what should have been a decade of excellence.

Elite shooter, prolific scorer, clutch performer with competitive drive

Considered one of greatest European players ever, paved way for international players in NBA

• All-NBA Third Team (1993)
• EuroBasket champion 3x
• Olympic Silver Medal (Yugoslavia 1988)
• Hall of Fame (2002)