03/29/09
Vlade Divac, left, hugs Mike Bibby after the Kings beat the Lakers 92-91 to come within one win of the 2002 NBA Finals. Bibby's 18-footer with 8.2 seconds left won it. Everyone told him he was crazy. He was a coveted free agent that year, one of few available big men, and was receiving interest from some of the league's elite organizations. So Vlade Divac signed with the Kings. He changed everything. In the ensuing months of the lockout-shortened 1999 season, with Divac as the physical and emotional anchor, the franchise began its metamorphosis from chronic NBA lottery participant to dynamic, multilayered team on the cusp of a championship. Chris Webber. Rookies Jason Williams and Peja Stojakovic. Jon Barry. Corliss Williamson. Scot Pollard. Vernon Maxwell. Tariq Abdul-Wahad. Coach Rick Adelman. Cowtown was never the same, the cowbells notwithstanding. In Divac's six years here, the Kings were perennial and entertaining contenders, a rollicking rock group collaborating on scintillating passes, backdoor cuts, symmetrical movements, lethal three-point shooting and occasionally stifling defense. The band played on from 1999 to 2004, winning division titles, and in 2002, coming within one freakish tap and Robert Horry three-pointer of reaching the NBA Finals. "Without Vlade, the whole thing doesn't work," San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "He'll always be regarded as the foundation of their glory years because he was the core. He gave them personality, the unselfishness, the thing that made that team special." There was his generous complement of basketball gifts Divac is one of only three players to record at least 13,000 points, 9,000 rebounds, 3,000 assists and 1,500 blocks and then there was the man himself. The affable, 7-foot-1 Serb who hovered in the background. The good citizen who contributed to charitable and humanitarian causes. The professional athlete accessible to all. The playful teammate who pulled more pranks than an unsupervised class of 10-year-olds. "I lost a bet to Vlade on a road trip once," Bobby Jackson said, "and he told me I had to take my clothes off and run through the hotel lobby in my underwear, singing, 'Who Let the Dogs Out?' He would create stuff like that all the time to lighten things up, especially when we were going against the Lakers." Ironically, Divac's NBA career began and ended with the franchise Kings fans love to hate. Yet who could have foreseen a former Laker getting traded to Charlotte and, two years later, willingly relocating to Sacramento and becoming the king of Kings? It happened. The early years With the Cold War ending and the figurative walls around Eastern Europe crumbling, five of the most celebrated international stars decided to test the NBA in the historic offseason of 1989 Divac, of the former Yugoslavia, among them. "I was so nervous," said the native of Prijepolje, who was 21 and newly married at the time. "I thought I was going to end up between No. 5-15 (in the draft), and nobody picked me. But it turned out to be a perfect situation with the team who got me." The Lakers. The near-perfect franchise. Jerry West was the general manager, Pat Riley the coach, Magic Johnson the star, Divac the willing, boyish pupil. Armed with playbooks and an English dictionary, the lanky, long-limbed center impressed even the demanding Riley with his desire and persistence. "This was big for him," Riley recalled. "It was Showtime. It was Magic. Here he was, this almost frail-looking man, who could run, who could dunk. He had big hands. And he could really pass the ball. Back then, he wasn't in the condition we wanted, and because he didn't speak any English, I used a lot of visuals, hand signals, things like that. But he understood 'Screen. Rebound. Block out.' And you could just see his potential." Divac says Riley's strict rules, coupled with the close supervision of Magic and other veterans, lessened the culture shock and enabled him to mature quickly. "After playing for Pat," he said with a laugh, "the NBA was so easy." At the end of the 1989-90 season, however, Riley was dismissed. He was followed by a succession of coaches five during Divac's initial seven-year Lakers tenure, beginning with Mike Dunleavy, including Magic and ending with Del Harris. A detour to Carolina Then, in 1996, West executed one of the league's most significant double-coups. He coaxed free agent Shaquille O'Neal away from the Orlando Magic, and, after Kobe Bryant's agent announced his client had no intention of reporting to Charlotte after being drafted by the Hornets, the legendary Lakers boss included Divac in a trade for the tantalizing, 6-7 teenager. Devastated, Divac threatened to retire but eventually left his family in Los Angeles and moved to Charlotte. It was there while being coached by another legendary big man, Dave Cowens, and his forceful assistant Paul Silas that Divac committed to mastering the pass. "On Lakers I was good with assist, but I was supposed to rebound and score," he said. "In Charlotte, we had scorers, so I said, 'I'll do things Magic does with Lakers, make teammates better.' " When Hornets owner George Shinn hesitated to re-sign his center to a lucrative long-term deal, Divac immediately looked west. The Kings intrigued him, his teasing cohorts notwithstanding, because Geoff Petrie already had swapped for Webber and signed the two talented rookies. Plus, Petrie, a former teammate of Bill Walton who favors skilled big men, was both amiable and relentless. "There are certain players you watch from a distance," said Petrie, "and you think, 'It would be really great to have a guy like that.' Vlade was that guy." Divac's signing crystallized the team's transformation. With Petrie upgrading positions each season the additions of Mike Bibby, Doug Christie and Jackson among the most notable the Kings developed a unique style. Executing Adelman and Pete Carril's offensive systems flawlessly, they were a threat to score from anywhere, in the halfcourt or in transition, and their combination of body and ball movement was reminiscent of the great Boston Celtics, New York Knicks and Lakers teams of previous decades. "We were internationally known," Divac said. "Even today when I travel, people ask about Sacramento and remember the Kings." But as Popovich said earlier, it worked only because of Divac, the player, the personality. "You describe Vlade as Switzerland," Christie said, "because he doesn't have a problem with anybody. Imagine that on a strong team. His contributions transcended statistics. I don't know if people realize how good Vlade was, to be honest with you." Despite his playful nature, Divac was a physical force, never reluctant to use his elbows, tug at opponents' shirts or position himself on the left or right elbow, where he would hand the ball off to teammates for open jumpers or driving layups. When so inclined, he would sweep underneath for a bank shot, a hook or one of those super-slow-motion, spur-of-the moment baseline scoops that confounded quicker, younger defenders. And defensively, what he lacked in quickness and muscle, he made up for with guile and ingenuity; as a flopper, he had no equal. "I used to get ticked off about all that flopping," Shaquille O'Neal said recently. "He would use all his strength, then when I turned my shoulder on him a little bit, he would fall all over the place, make it look like I was overpowering him. He was such an actor. But Vlade was a great player. He could do it all. Inside, outside." And, oh, those beautiful passes. Bounce passes, baseball passes, lob passes, crosscourt passes, between-the-leg passes. A giant of a man, with long, sturdy legs that accounted for much of his length, he is regarded within the industry as one of the game's greatest passing big men, equaled only by Walton and Lithuania's Arvydas Sabonis. "I'm Sabonis' biggest fan," said Walton, "but I love the way Vlade passed. The way he would drop a dime on the backdoor cut, float a pass over the defense, toss a lob from the high post. He would stand out there, holding the ball up, and his teammates would play off him. He was the centerpiece, the person through whom everything evolved and revolved." And while Popovich, Riley, Don Nelson, Phil Jackson, Jerry Sloan, etc., respected other Kings, recognized Webber as the best player, they were most concerned with the threat posed by Divac the player, not the guy. Everybody loved the guy. "I would say, of all the Kings I've known in 24 years of professional basketball," Kings player personnel director Jerry Reynolds said, "if I had to rank them, Vlade would be (my favorite). And I say that because, as an observer, I would just sit back and watch him interact with his teammates. Vlade was beloved." Vlade Divac is considered one of the game's greatest passing big men, equaled only by Bill Walton and Lithuania's Arvydas Sabonis. "I love the way Vlade passed," Walton said.
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