LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Vlade Divac, who won Olympic basketball silver with Yugoslavia and later with Serbia, lauded the game’s ability to bridge divides as he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday.
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.
Mentored by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, he quickly adapted to the NBA and was the first player born and trained outside the United States to play more than 1,000 games in the league.
Among those he thanked in his induction speech on Friday was his former Yugoslav teammate Toni Kukoc, a Croatian.
“The people of the Balkans are like a dysfunctional family. We may fight and argue, but in the end we are family,” said Divac, who spent eight years with the Lakers and played six with the Sacramento Kings – where he is now general manager.
“To me basketball was always about love.”
Divac was part of a 2019 Hall of Fame class inducted in Springfield, Massachusets, that also included Sidney Moncrief, Paul Westphal, Jack Sikma, Bobby Jones, Al Attles, Bill Fitch and Teresa Weatherspoon.
