Back More
Salem Press

Table of Contents

Great Athletes

Vlade Divac

by Alexander Jordan

Sport: Basketball

Early Life

Vlade Divac was born in the small town of Prijepolje, in Serbia, Yugoslavia (now in Serbia). His father, Milenko Divac, was an executive of an electronics firm. His mother was named Rada Divac. When Vlade was twelve years old, he left Prijepolje to play on a club team in Kraljevo, a town larger than his about four hours away. He quickly advanced through the Yugoslav basketball levels. By the time he was sixteen, he was already playing in the senior leagues of the Yugoslav basketball system and had signed a contract with the professional team Sloga. In the United States, his feat was comparable to a sixteen-year-old joining the NBA. Meanwhile, as a member of the national team, Vlade traveled throughout Europe.

Vlade Divac playing for the Los Angeles Lakers in 1990.

ph_Divac_Vlade.jpg

(Tim Defrisco/Getty Images)

The Road to Excellence

In 1985, while still only seventeen, Vlade helped lead the Yugoslavian Junior Olympic team to the gold medal in the World University Games, beating a group of soon-to-be superstars from the United States that included Gary Payton and Larry Johnson. When he was eighteen, he began playing for Belgrade Partizan, one of the leading teams in the Yugoslav league. During his seasons with Partizan, he averaged approximately 20 points and 10 rebounds per game. Three years later, in 1988, he was the starting center on the Yugoslav Olympic team at Seoul, Korea, where he averaged 11.7 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. That year, his team won the silver medal.

basketball_divac.tif
basketball_divac_2.tif

The Emerging Champion

When 7-foot 1-inch Vlade was drafted as a center by the Los Angeles Lakers in 1989, he faced huge challenges. He was selected to replace the legendary center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had retired the year before, so expectations were high. Moreover, as NBA basketball tended toward a much rougher style of play than the European game, Vlade had to adjust to a different set of rules. However, he was fortunate to have excellent teachers. His new teammates—including Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Michael Cooper, and Byron Scott—were NBA champions ready to help him, and his new coach, Pat Riley, was also willing to teach him the intricacies of NBA basketball. His playing experience and athleticism earned him a spot on the all-rookie first team, and his obvious love for the game and impressive agility and speed quickly endeared him to Los Angeles fans.

The summer after his first season in the NBA, Vlade married his girlfriend, Snevana. As a testament to his popularity in his homeland, his wedding—which was attended by more than one thousand people—was filmed by a television crew and later broadcast on Yugoslav national television. Meanwhile, his apprenticeship in the NBA continued. Over the next five seasons, his production steadily increased in all areas. During the 1994-1995 season, while starting all eighty games for the Lakers, he averaged 16 points, 10.4 rebounds, 4.1 assists—leading all NBA centers in that category that year—and 2.17 blocks per game. Following this impressive season, he helped the Yugoslav national team to a victory in the European Championships in the summer of 1995.

Continuing the Story

After the 1995-1996 season, the Lakers traded Vlade to the Charlotte Hornets for a superstar-to-be Kobe Bryant and an opportunity to sign free-agent center Shaquille O’Neal. Before he reported to the Hornets, Vlade helped the Yugoslav team win a silver medal in the Atlanta, Georgia, Olympics during the summer of 1996. Afterward, although he was disappointed to leave Los Angeles, he performed well for the Hornets. During his first season for his new team he averaged 12.6 points, 9 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and a career-high 2.22 blocks per game. During his two years as a Hornet, he led the team in blocked shots and set a team record for blocks in one game, with 12. In a statistic that demonstrates Vlade’s quick-handedness, he also led the Hornets in steals during his first season and was second in steals during his second season.

After Vlade completed his contract with the Hornets, he exercised his rights as a free agent by signing with the Sacramento Kings so he could return to California for the 1998-1999 season. During his first year with the Kings, he averaged 14.3 points, 10 rebounds, and 4.3 assists per game. His experience served the Kings well as the team challenged the favored Utah Jazz in a strong first-round playoff match. During the playoff series, Vlade led the Kings in points, rebounds, and assists. After that season, he signed a five-year extension to his contract with the Kings.

No longer a newcomer to the NBA game, Vlade became a wily veteran who contributed eleven years of experience to a young Sacramento team that quickly became one of the best in the league. In 2001, when the Lakers’ Shaquille O’Neal could not play in the all-star game, Vlade was named to replace him. In 2001-2002, Vlade and teammates Chris Webber, Peja Stojaković, and Mike Bibby led the Kings to the franchise’s best-ever record and a tie for first place in the NBA’s Pacific Division. At the end of the season, the Kings met the Lakers in the conference finals, only to lose in a heartbreaking seven-game series.

After the Kings came within one game of making the NBA Finals in 2002, Vlade continued to perform at a high level through his last two seasons with the team. The Kings remained competitive but did not pose another serious challenge for the league championship during those years. At the end of the 2003-2004 season, Vlade again became a free agent. By then, O’Neal was no longer with the Lakers, who signed Vlade. However, Vlade struggled with serious back problems and was unable to put in much time on the court. During the 2004-2005 season, he appeared in only fifteen games and had limited minutes of playing time. In July, 2005, he announced his retirement.

Despite the considerable wealth and fame that NBA stars acquire, Vlade never forgot his roots. While he was earning millions of dollars playing basketball in the United States during the 1990’s, the violence in Yugoslavia was never far from his mind, as he had left many family members and friends behind when he moved to the United States. Throughout his playing career, he used his status as a professional athlete to bring attention to the human side of the political confrontation.

Aside from his two sons, Luka and Matia, Vlade and his wife adopted a Yugoslav orphan girl, Petra. In 1995, Vlade, along with teammates from his Yugoslav basketball days, founded the Divac Childrens’ Foundation/Group 7, which raised funds for children of all ethnic backgrounds affected by the war in Yugoslavia. He also took part in a number of activities dedicated to disadvantaged children in the United States. Thanks to his work in these fields, in 2000, he became the first foreign-born player ever awarded the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award.

After retiring from playing, Vlade invested in business enterprises in the Sacramento area and in his native Serbia, which gained its independence from Yugoslavia in 2006. Toward the end of 2007, he founded an organization to assist Serbian refugees from the disorders of the previous decade.

Summary

Vlade Divac matured significantly as a player during his sixteen-year career in the NBA. When he began his NBA career, he could barely speak English, but he eventually performed well enough in his adopted language to appear in many commercials, television programs, and films. Initially unaccustomed to the pace and the physicality of the NBA game, he quickly mastered the various tricks of veteran American players and was generous in passing along his knowledge and experience to younger teammates. However, although he showed remarkable development throughout his NBA career, he already had many of the skills that made him one of the league’s best players. For a center, he was an exceptional outside shooter, passer, and ball-handler. Moreover, his enthusiasm and love for the game were always obvious and contributed to both his success on the court and the respect he earned from his teammates, opponents, and fans in both his homeland and the United States.

Additional Sources

1 

Grabowski, John F. The Los Angeles Lakers. San Diego, Calif.: Lucent Books, 2002.

2 

Kalb, Elliott. Who’s Better, Who’s Best in Basketball? Mr. Stats Sets the Record Straight on the Top Fifty NBA Players of All Time. Chicago: Contemporary Books, 2004.

3 

LeBoutillier, Nate. The Story of the Sacramento Kings. Mankato, Minn.: Creative Education, 2006.

4 

Reilly, Rick. “Vlade Divac’s Private War.” Sports Illustrated 90, no. 21 (May 24, 1999): 114.

5 

Reynolds, Jerry. Reynolds Remembers: Twenty Years with the Sacramento Kings. Champaign, Ill.: Sports, 2006.

6 

Wolff, Alexander. “Prisoners of War: Nine Years Ago, as Yugoslavs and Friends, They Beat the U.S. to Win the World Junior Basketball Title.” Sports Illustrated, June 3, 1996, 80.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Jordan, Alexander. "Vlade Divac." Great Athletes,Salem Press, 2009. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Athletes_1255.
APA 7th
Jordan, A. (2009). Vlade Divac. Great Athletes. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Jordan, Alexander. "Vlade Divac." Great Athletes. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2009. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.