'Once Brothers' is poignant look at ex-NBA stars

Yugoslavia barely had said hello as a global basketball power when it was forced to say goodbye, an unsettling tale of civil war and the destruction of personal relationships expertly told in "Once Brothers," another in the ESPN "30 For 30" documentary series that will air Oct. 12.

At the core of the narrative is the lost friendship between the NBA's first two European superstars, Vlade Divac and Drazen Petrovic, with Divac literally revisiting people and places from a past that turned from dreamy youth to cold reality.

Together, Divac and Petrovic had won the 1988 Olympic silver medal (behind the Soviets, ahead of the Americans), the 1989 European championships and 1990 world championships (by beating the Soviet Union) and were, as Divac says in the film, a team "on the verge of greatness."

But the post-Communist splintering of Yugoslavia along ethnic fault lines precipitated what Divac calls "lost years for Drazen and my teammates" - not only in the major international titles they might have won together but also the dissolved fellowship. With the republics of Serbia and Croatia - now independent nations - on opposite sides in a bloody conflict, Yugoslavia's team was inevitably split apart.

Divac, who would star with the "showtime" Lakers, and Zarko Paspalj were Serbian; Petrovic, the future Nets' sharpshooter, Toni Kukoc and Dino Radja were Croatian. All went on to NBA careers but, before they did, experienced the ideal of sport - as euphoric apolitical endeavor - turned on its head by clashing regional identities.

Then, of course, in the midst of those personal separations, Petrovic died in a car accident in 1993, at 28. "I always thought the day would come," Divac says in the film, "when Drazen and I would sit down and talk. But that day never came. . ."

"Once Brothers" shows the Yugoslav players both for the special athletic powers that make them different from you and me, and for their thoroughly recognizable humanity.

As kids, thrown together by basketball, they "developed something like being a family," Kukoc says. "It was probably the most carefree part of my life." Radja recalls how their different backgrounds originally were something "we never talk about, one second. Nothing. Nothing. Zero."

But when war broke out, Divac's sincerity in keeping politics out of basketball bordered on naivete. During on-court celebrations following Yugoslavia's 1990 world championships victory, Divac took the Croatian flag from a pushy fan, saying he "wanted to show we were a team from Yugoslavia, not from Croatia, or Serbia, or any other republic."

Kukoc, looking back on the incident, says, "I know at the time he had no clue what he did." Petrovic, more than the others, had taken it as an insult to his homeland. And the others, beginning their career pursuits a half-world away from the military conflict - Kukoc with the Bulls and Radja with the Celtics - virtually stopped speaking to each other.

"There was nothing to talk about," Kukoc recalls for the cameras. "You can't avoid the question of the family back home. Where do you take the conversations? It was pretty much easier to just avoid."

Divac was roundly painted as an enemy in Croatia, and Radja remembers how it was "difficult for me to stand up and say, 'People, you're wrong. He's a good guy. He's not a bad guy.' "

All this happened as basketball began to be a significant presence on the international stage. The long-standing superiority of the United States was eroding, and Yugoslavia was one of the nations knocking on the door as a leading contender.

The Yugoslavs were second in the '76 Olympics and won the 1980 gold medal in Moscow when the U.S. boycotted those Games, followed by an '84 bronze and the '88 silver. American losses in other international competitions, including the now-defunct Goodwill Games and the Pan-American Games, brought urgency to the international basketball federation's vote to allow NBA professionals into the fold.

When the Yanks' so-called "Dream Team" debuted at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, featuring Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan, Yugoslavia was banned based on international sanctions as an aggressor in its civil war. Croatia, welcomed as a newly independent nation, got to the gold medal game, led by Petrovic, before losing to the Americans.

"I watched the game," Divac says in the documentary. "But it wasn't easy. Drazen played a great game. ... but I always wondered what would have happened if my former teammates and I had played together."

Basketball fans should have the same lament. Not just for some big games never contested, but for the realization that sports can't necessarily save the world.