http://www.slamonline.com/magazine/features/vlade/ _________________________________________________________ it's a little bit old.. but really good! Vlade Divac :: King of the World Chris Webber might be the muscle of the Sacramento Kings, and Mike Bibby may be their brains, but it's international veteran Vlade Divac who is the team's heart. By Lang Whitaker They were quite a sight, three towering, swarthy Eastern European men and the stocky lil' black dude from Flint, Michigan. Yet there they all were, racing from the Back to the Future ride over to the Terminator 2: 3D Experience, laughing their asses off and screaming more on the roller coasters thanthe kids around them. "We looked funny, I'm sure," recalls Mateen Cleaves, the Flint part of the equation, "all these tall European guys with this black guy, going all over that place." But why not? How often do you get to spend a day at Universal Studios Florida? Vlade Divac and his makeshift posse got no special treatment, even paying full price to get in, although the starting center from the best basketball team in the World (or at least, at the Worlds) did treat Cleaves, Peja Stojakovic and Hedo Turkoglu all day long, playing dad to three overgrown kids, buying them drinks with curly straws and over-salted pretzels. That's Vlade, loved by fans in Sacramento, but maybe even more so by those who are with him every day, his teammates. As Kings forward Chris Webber says, "He's probably the best person I know that's not a family member." "It's hard to think of what to say about him, really, because he's incredible," adds Cleaves. "Vlade Divac is one of the most incredible people I've ever met." We can ask Vlade to stand up straight and measure him as a human body -- a 7-1, 260-pound man who still seems somehow undersized -- or as a ball player, stacking him up against Shaq and Yao and whoever else is out there worth talking about. But it is the one part of Vlade that is not quantifiable that sets him apart and makes him special. His soul. If you were going to look for the perfect counter punch to Shaquille O'Neal -- something everyone in the hoop world except Mitch Kupchak is working on right now -- you probably wouldn't think to start with hound dog eyes, four days worth of spotty whiskers and a physique straight off the third court at the YMCA. You would not go skinny or, yes, whiny. You would not pick a guy who looks more likely to throw up his arms and exclaim "What a country!" than to effectively deter Shaq. Yet Vlade did it last year, and the year before that, and he'll probably do it this year, too. He is The Professional, Jean Reno for the NBA, mixing equal parts comedic exasperation with Three Stooges-worthy snappin' and trappin' and those pratfalls to provide a stealthily effective "anti-" to Webber's, Peja's and Bibby's flashy "climax." "I just play hard, man," Divac says, expressionless. "I play hard. I do what I can." His post game is a rough amalgamation of improvised step-back jumpers and up-and-under moves -- not exactly stuff that makes Pete Newell drool. "His game is totally finesse," says Webber. "We call Vlade the Smooth Operator, because he'll hit you with some moves sometimes. They're like Hakeem, except they put you to sleep more than shake you up. Before I played with him, I thought he was soft. Unless you play with the guy and see him every day and see how hard he works, it's hard to gain that respect for him." Divac may be closing in on 40 years old (his bio in the Kings media guide claims he's 34), but he is still lithe enough to cut backdoor all night, giving CWebb a perfect target to lace with all those behind-the-back passes. When Bibby needs a pick, Vlade will not knock you over, but he can still create enough commotion to rub the defender off, then step back and bang the 18-footer. And he's got just enough crazy in him to put a pause in defenders who try to get physical. (When Doug Christie and Rick Fox got their preseason rumble on in the Staples Center tunnel, Vlade was the lone King to actually raise his fists to Shaq.) Divac's knowledge of the game plays the same no matter what language it's in, and it is his most undervalued asset. He's been under more referee skin than Robin Ficker, offered up more arguments than Alan Dershowitz. But watch how Vlade ends the arguments: his arm around the ref, a smile on his face -- verbally saying, "You know what? I was wrong, I'm sorry," while subconsciously stating, "You'd better give me that call next time." Defensively, especially against the likes of Shaq, Divac has spent much of the last decade falling down, which is a big part of his game. When an offensive player backs Divac down and drops the shoulder to prepare for the spin move, Vlade usually gets out the way, preferably while emitting a loud "Ohhh!" and flailing his arms. His head will snap back as though Junk Yard Dog just headbutted him, and his legs appear to simultaneously catch cramps. And as soon as the action moves on, call or no call, Vlade hops up and runs back down the court, magically repaired like some dive-taking soccer player, ready to do it all over again. "I don't really flop," he says, smiling a little bit. "Sometimes I get knocked down, but the refs, they don't call a foul." That's it? "That's it. Yes." Officially, Vlade Divac was born on February 3, 1968, in Prijepolje, Yugoslavia. His story is much like that of many NBA players: He was the best basketball player in his age group in his town, year after year, and when he got good enough, he went to the NBA. And he's been kind of hanging around here ever since. But that's where the similarities end. Divac was born in Serbia, a constituent part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1991, as Divac was entering his third NBA season with the Lakers, war found Yugoslavia when Croatia and Slovenia decided to pull out of the country. Soon after, Bosnia joined the secession, and war began to tear through the region. Here in America, we heard bits and pieces of the news in phrases that became familiar -- Kosovo, ethnic cleansing, Milosevic, the Balkans -- but held little meaning to most of us, safely immured in what we thought was our isolated superpower. "My country has been in a transition from one system to democracy," Vlade says, speaking slowly. "It takes a long, long time. The economy went down, and people tried to blame each other for the problems. There was a fight between different groups. Now it's getting better, but it takes time." As time makes things better, Vlade is doing what he can to make a difference. He founded Group 7, a charity organization funded largely by a crew of seven pro basketball players and former teammates from Yugoslavia, including Pistons center Zeljko Rebraca. According to their website (www.groupseven.org) they have come "together for the children!" Divac and his wife, Ana, have even adopted an orphaned child from his native land. "He doesn't look at things the way we look at them, being tainted by everything we have here in the U.S," Webber explains. "Vlade comes from a different background, where so many things we cry about here seem trivial. His heart for things is amazing. He signed with DaDa with me just on the strength of our relationship, and we're going to do some things to try and help out in his homeland." This summer, Vlade and his fellow Yugo, Stojakovic, gave their basketball-crazed country a chance to get their groove back by winning the FIBA World Championships in Indianapolis, fulfilling a promise Divac had made months earlier and kicking off a huge jam back in Belgrade. "Even though they say attendance was bad and ratings were bad, everyone I talk to watched the World Championships," Vlade says, obviously proud. "The only people who thought it would not be competitive were the people who do not know basketball. "Ever since I came into the League," he continues, "all the GMs have been looking for more foreign guys. It's been 10 years since I came into the League, and it's totally different now. Totally. Just imagine 10 years from now." When he entered the NBA in '89, as one of just two Euros in the League (along with the late Drazen Petrovic), Divac was a man on an island -- a huge, huge island called America. "L.A. was just culture shock for me," he remembers. "The people with the Lakers helped me to make the transition -- the front office, my teammates. I was lucky to be there. They will always be a favorite of mine."As a rookie he was asked to fill the legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's L.A. Gears, playing 82 games alongside Magic, Worthy, Byron Scott and A.C. Green. As Vlade warmed to the climate and the country, and as the rest of the Lakers' stars started dimming, Vlade's game developed. By '94-95, during the Ceballos/Van Exel/Eddie Jones era, Vlade was coming into his own, and he posted the best season of his career, finishing with averages of 16 points, 10.4 boards and 4.1 assists per. For more on Vlade Divac, pick up SLAM 67.
