Today’s article revolves around a European basketball legend who decided to call it a day last weekend.

I am referring to Vlade Divac, an inspiration and idol to many die-hard basketball enthusiasts and also a team-mate of the late (and magical) Drazen Petrovic.

Serbia-born Vlade Divac, now 39 years old, officially brought the curtain down on his illustrious career last weekend with a parting wish that his career would be an inspiration to others.

He said goodbye in his home town of Prijepolje, where numerous stars of the sport attended a farewell party which included street basketball tournaments and a giant concert in Belgrade in aid of Divac’s own charitable foundation.

Vlade Divac was born on the 3rd of February 1968 in the town of Prijepole in Serbia (then Yugoslavia). He began playing basketball in his home town for the team KK Elan. His first professional venture was with Sloga Kraljevo and he immediately caught the eye when netting 27 points against the mighty Red Star Belgrade.

In fact, in 1986, he was transferred to KK Partizan Belgrade and in that same year, at the age of 18, he made the debut for the senior Yugoslavia national basketball team in the 1986 FIBA World Championship in Madrid.

However, the excellent rookie’s performance in the championships was spoiled in the semi-final against the Soviet Union (a game I was lucky to see on TV and which will remain for ever in my memory) as one minute before the end, Yugoslavia had a confident lead of nine points, but the Soviets scored three three-pointers in a row. In the subsequent overtime, the Soviets easily prevailed against the shocked Yugoslavs.

In the following year, Divac participated in the team that took the gold at the FIBA Under-19 World Championships in Bormio, Italy. That event launched the young generation of Yugoslavian basketballers, also featuring stars like Dino Radja and Toni Kukoc, who then (before the breakup of Yugoslavia), along with the slightly older Dražen Petrovic and Aleksandar Djordevic also captured the titles at EuroBasket, both in 1989 and 1991, and the world FIBA World champions title in Argentina 1990.

Divac had an unusual style for centres of the time as despite his 7’1” height, he was athletic, had good control of the ball and was also a good shooter from the distance.

On some occasions, Divac would also act as a playmaker. In just four professional seasons in Europe, he became the most wanted high player in the continent after Lithuanian Arvidas Sabonis.

Divac was drafted into the NBA in 1989 when he picked by the Los Angeles Lakers and became one of the first European players to have an impact on the league. Under the tutorship of the legendary duo of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, Divac improved his play and adopted to the American style of the game.

Despite the fact that he did not speak any English, he quickly became popular among the teammates and the public for his charm and friendship.

During his time with the Lakers, Divac’s popularity and marketing potential, in addition to his entertaining and good-natured personality, were picked up on also by the American TV industry. As a result he appeared quite a few times on Los Angeles-based late night programmes such as The Arsenio Hall Show and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. On the big screen Divac took part in three basketball based movies, namely Eddie, Space Jam and Juwanna Mann.

After a successful time in LA, Divac was traded to the Charlotte Hornets for the draft rights to Kobe Bryant in 1996. In Charlotte, Divac spent two seasons and then signed as a free agent with the Sacramento Kings where he played from 1998 to 2004.

After the 2003-04 NBA season, Vlade became once again a free agent and signed a deal to return to the Lakers and was part of a grand plan to overhaul the Lakers basketball programme as the latter, following a defeat in the NBA Finals, had traded away or released most of their players, including star center Shaquille O’Neal and Divac was supposed to fill that void. However, Divac suffered back problems and was a lot of time on the sidelines due to injury.

On 14 July 2005, Divac announced his retirement, ending his sixteen-year basketball career.

Divac managed to finish his NBA career as one of most versatile centres in history with an average of 11.8 points, 8.2 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.4 blocks and 1.1 steals in a total of 1,134 matches. Together with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Hakeem Olajuwon, Divac is one of only three players in NBA history to have amassed 13,000 points (13,364), 9,000 rebounds (9,294), 3,000 assists (3,522) and 1,500 blocks (1,630).

From 2005 to 2006, Divac was then employed as European scout for the Los angeles Lakers.

During his playing career and afterwards, Divac focused on three fields, namely humanitarian work, basketball management and investment, in that order of success.

As regards basketball management, late in 2000, after the overthrow of the Miloševic regime, Divac and former teammate Predrag Danilovic took over their former club KK Partizan. The club was the launching pad for both of their basketball careers in late 1980s and early 1990s and it was only fitting they would now play prominent parts in its management.

However, after few years the duo pulled out of the venture in late 2004 because it became too much of a financial burden with no end goal in sight. While they currently perform no official functions at the club, Divac and Danilovic continue to be involved with it in lesser capacity.

Then in June 2006, through his friendship with Predrag Mijatovic, Divac linked up with Ramon Calderon as part of his candidate bid for the presidency of Real Madrid polideportivo.

When Calderon closely won the club elections the following month, Divac was introduced as the head of operations at Real Madrid basketball club.

However, Divac’s role in the club’s day to day operations is largely symbolic, and even he himself admitted as much in a March 2007 interview for Croatian weekly Globus: “I literally do nothing and I only serve as part of the royal club’s image. I only accepted the job because of Mijatovic, who is currently the football director at Real”

Divac is also a proactive humanitarian worker, focusing on aid to children worldwide and refugees in his home country. Along with 6 Serbian basketball teammates, Divac established the charity called Group Seven, later renamed to “Divac’s Children Foundation”, and works closely with International Orthodox Christians Charities (IOCC), having helped them to raise around $500,000 for humanitarian assistance in Serbia since 1997.

Divac’s own foundation, presided by his wife Snezana (Divac is married and has two sons, Matija and Luka, apart from an adopted daughter Petra, whose parents were killed during the Kosovo war) provided over $2,500,000 in humanitarian assistance in the last 10 years.

In 2007 Divac has founded a humanitarian organization, “You Can Do It too” whose aim is to assist the refugees in Serbia. In fact, Serbia has around 500,000 refugees from the 1990s Yugoslav wars, making it the country with the largest refugee problem in Europe. Around 7,800 of these people still live in collective centres under poor conditions, so the organization has vouched itself to buy abandoned countryside houses, in an attempt to finally solve their accommodation problem.

In fact his own humanitarian organisation provided the back drop when Divac organised the official farewell from active basketball career in front of 10,000 people last weekend.

Stars including Aleksandar Djordjevic, Dejan Bodiroga, Predrag Stojakovic, Predrag Danilovic, Zoran Savic, Chris Webber and Zarko Paspalj gathered Divac’s farewell.

“He was not just a great basketball player,” said Chris Webber, who played alongside Divac at Sacramento. “He is the best human being I’ve ever met - the guy with the biggest heart.”

Divac’s comment was a humble one, “My career has shown that an ordinary man from an ordinary town can achieve his dreams”.

Reports now state that Vlade Divac has announced that he is planning to run for President of Serbia some time in the future!