Cannes Film Festival 2013

'30 for 30' - 'Once Brothers': Vlade and Drazen, together again

Politics gets in the way of basketball and friendship

<p>Vlade Divac and Drazen Petrovic in their early NBA days.</p>

Vlade Divac and Drazen Petrovic in their early NBA days.

Credit: ESPN

I first started seriously following the NBA in the early-mid '90s, and two of my favorite non-Knicks players were the subject of this week's "30 for 30" film, "Once Brothers," a review of which is coming up just as soon as I shoot a commercial with Magic...

I liked Vlade Divac because he was weirdly slovenly for an athlete (I half expected to see a cigarette dangling from his mouth as he ran up the court), because the contrast of his talent and erratic play frustrated Magic Johnson in a way that always seeemed amusing and because when he was playing really well (as he would most consistently on those turn-of-the-century Kings teams), he made the game incredibly fun to watch.

Drazen Petrovic, on the other hand, was great to watch because he wasn't fun. He was an assassin, striving to get a team filled with knuckleheads (several of whom were interviewed for this film) to be taken seriously. I loved watching him bury a big shot and then pump his fist, or command the Meadowlands crowd to get up on their damn feet already, and was very sad to hear about his death, so soon after America had finally started to realize how great he was.

Though it was probably too long (I could have done without some of the childhood material about Vlade and Drazen, and maybe some of Vlade's travelogue before he got to Croatia), "Once Brothers" did a nice job of telling the sad story of how politics tore apart that great Yugoslavian team, and the friendship between Divac and Petrovic, and how Drazen's fatal car accident prevented any chance for the former brothers to reconcile. It's unclear how many of the weird looks Vlade got in Croatia were because of his past versus people simply noticing a 7-foot tall man being trailed by a camera crew, but his visits to Drazen's family his grave were among the more moving moments of the "30 for 30" series.

What did everybody else think? 

Alan-sepinwall-sm
Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching
Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

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  • Default-avatar

    @IAmEntertained

    I actually thought this was one of the better told stories in the series with how it was put together from beginning to end. I was very moved and I'm glad this story was told. The NBA should teach the MLB how to do a documentary.

    October 12, 2010 at 9:41PM EST Reply to Comment
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    Tim

    I thought this was the best 30 for 30 they've done yet from a story stand point. This or The Two Escobars.

    October 12, 2010 at 9:42PM EST Reply to Comment
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    stan

    Great story (especially for the scope of 30-for-30). I think having it narrated and told through the eyes of Divac kind of put a slant on things that I'm not sure I like in documentaries. Some of the scenes with Vlade seemed overproduced, or done for an effect. I'm not saying it was awful or too much, just that (as I think we've seen with most of these docs) the story is so compelling that you wish the people making the films would get out of the way.

    October 12, 2010 at 9:43PM EST Reply to Comment
    • 5740_140244010504_505705504_3467212_3589155_n_talkback_profile

      Omagus I do agree with this, to a certain extent. That last scene with Divac at Petrovic's grave did seem just a tad bit staged.

      October 12, 2010 at 9:49PM EST
  • 5740_140244010504_505705504_3467212_3589155_n_talkback_profile

    Omagus

    I also really started getting into the NBA during the late 80s and early 90s. The first set of basketball cards I ever bought contained one of Drazen Petrovic when he was with the Trailblazers, so I knew who he was even before he blossomed with the Nets. I think that's a significant reason why he became one of my favorite players; it's almost like someone I knew had become a star.

    I think this is one of the best 30 for 30 episodes yet. It really moved me. On top of it being about one of my favorite childhood players from my favorite sport, it's caused me to really want to study up on the Croatia-Serbia conflict.

    October 12, 2010 at 9:47PM EST Reply to Comment
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      Michael Omagus, that's exactly right. That Croatia-Serbian conflict is quite confusing. But definitely tragic and heartbreaking.

      October 21, 2010 at 3:07PM EST
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    Mark

    you can take it to the bank that most of those people in Zagreb were staring at Divac because they couldn't believe he had the stones to be there...and some obviously took great offense, like the guy who made a point to call him "chetnik" right into the camera. The Serbs did a lot of terrible stuff in the war, Divac did none of it but he's the sporting face of the country I suppose. The special was incredible, a bit slow in the middle but the last 30 minutes were amazing and sooo sad.

    October 12, 2010 at 9:48PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Midnight_run_mca255950_talkback_profile

      sepinwall That's a fair point: in the former Yugoslavian countries, Vlade's a hell of a lot more famous than he was here, or then most NBA players are here.

      October 12, 2010 at 10:05PM EST
    • I seem to recall talk at some point that Vlade could run for President of Serbia and would be a shoe-in to win.

      October 12, 2010 at 10:28PM EST
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      cooldude Do your research before saying that Serbs did a lot of terrible stuff in the war. The Croats and Muslims did terrible stuff as well. Also look up the "Ustashe" on google or wikipedia.

      October 12, 2010 at 11:17PM EST
    • Midnight_run_mca255950_talkback_profile

      sepinwall Okay, and that's the end of that. The No Politics rule for this blog extends to discussing civil war atrocities. Vlade and Drazen themselves had nothing to do with what happened during the war, so we're not going to talk about that stuff here. Period.

      October 12, 2010 at 11:33PM EST
    • Midnight_run_mca255950_talkback_profile

      sepinwall Okay, since I just had to delete several comments, let me repeat in big shiny capital letters so there's on confusion: NO POLITICS. NO TALK ABOUT THE WAR ITSELF.

      October 13, 2010 at 8:41AM EST
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      Boris sepinwall, this film is fairly political, whether it fits the needs of this blog or not; because the very drama of the two guys' friendship revolves around the politics and nothing else. Vlade's visit to Croatia also is shown through a prism of his being a person non grata there because of that thing he did on the court in Argentina after Yugoslavia won the FIBA world championship. if you delete the post containing politics, you might as well cut 50 minutes of this 79-min film. seriously.

      October 18, 2010 at 1:37PM EST


  • I wonder what someone who didn't know about Drazen's death would think watching the first hour or so.

    Also, I thought the repeated mispronunciation of Vlade's name on draft day was pretty funny. It's amazing how many great teams Vlade played on, both in the NBA and in international play.

    October 12, 2010 at 9:48PM EST Reply to Comment
    • Midnight_run_mca255950_talkback_profile

      sepinwall "I wonder what someone who didn't know about Drazen's death would think watching the first hour or so."

      I think, as with so many documentaries like this (see also the Terry Fox film), viewers would quickly notice that Drazen's relatives were being interviewed and he wasn't.

      October 12, 2010 at 10:03PM EST
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      Bern Knew he was going to die early. Just forgot how.

      Fox was different in that I thought the story would end happily with him completing the journey. Like Drazen, it was obvious that he would die. I just didn't think it would be then. Drazen's death in the episode left me as awestruck.

      October 13, 2010 at 10:45AM EST
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    Tom

    I was really looking forward to this episode, and while the interviews were compelling, I found the direction, writing of the narration, and overall structure to be surprisingly mediocre. The fact that the NBA and MLB have made two of the most by-the-numbers documentaries of the series does not strike me as a coincidence.

    October 12, 2010 at 10:22PM EST Reply to Comment
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    thehova

    I'll have to watch it tomorrow. The erratic schedule of the documentary series has caused me to miss a lot of them. But I don't think there is anyway around it. ESPN does have a lot of live events to show.

    October 12, 2010 at 10:27PM EST Reply to Comment
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      thebigbooyah Erratic schedule? 95% of them have been Tuesdays @ 8:00pm

      October 12, 2010 at 10:40PM EST
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      thehova I've never noticed that.

      The scheduling still seems erratic. It would help if they stuck to an every week or every other week schedule. But they can't do that due to live ESPN events.

      October 12, 2010 at 11:02PM EST
    • Midnight_run_mca255950_talkback_profile

      sepinwall It's a floor wax AND a dessert topping!

      Most of the films have aired Tuesdays at 8, but until this fall batch, there have been long gaps between the films.

      October 12, 2010 at 11:06PM EST
    • Easter_hunt__beach__various_march_053_talkback_profile

      Krolin10 This was a great prototype for an ongoing series in sports docs for ESPN, but the long gaps in between episodes has made it difficult to keep up with. I was really excited about the first few and then lost interest after ESPN went on long break.

      October 15, 2010 at 2:19PM EST
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    dara

    Amazing story....Being from that region hurts even more....Knowing what we could have had and lost it because of the politics....And Drazen's sudden death...So sad...:(((((

    October 12, 2010 at 10:31PM EST Reply to Comment
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    sibenka

    I will watch it tomorrow.
    But I don't think that Drazen would have agreed to the title 'Once Brothers'! That's way too much.

    October 13, 2010 at 12:13AM EST Reply to Comment
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      Boris Å ibenka, I'm glad not all people today from Drazen's and your hometown of Å ibenik are nationalistic/xenophobic/chauvinistic toward the Serbs like you have come accross in your post.
      And, I think Drazen actually would have approved of the title, just like Drazen's brother, his best friend Dino Radja (both his former teammates in Å ibenik's Cibona) do.

      October 18, 2010 at 12:40PM EST
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    ZacharyTF

    i haven't watched it yet, but I have to ask. Does anyone know what happened to the Bartman doc?

    It's not on the schedule for the 26th anymore and I don't see any sign of it anywhere on the 30 for 30 site.

    Wikipedia still has it listed, but I don't trust that site anywhere near as much as Michael Scott does.

    October 13, 2010 at 2:17AM EST Reply to Comment
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      Ben ZacharyTF...there was an online post which said the Bartman piece was being expanded by Alex Gibney into a 90-minute edition, and it will air in 2011. I hope that's true, and the real reason it's gone isn't a legal issue, because it sounds like a great match of subject and director. We'll see!

      October 13, 2010 at 6:54AM EST
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    Ben

    Great movie. Because this was done under NBA Entertainment's aegis, the ID of the director wasn't listed until the end credits and not used in the preview or promotions, and I wanted to give credit to a job very well done. So congratulations, Michael Tolajian.

    October 13, 2010 at 6:57AM EST Reply to Comment
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    Jesse

    Although I'm a big NBA fan this didn't affect me as much as I'd hoped it would when Bill Simmons announced it. When he died in '93 Petrovic was on the cusp of being one of the elite players in the league but, this being the pre-internet, pre-twitter days, he still wasn't well-known. Combine that with the fact he was soft-spoken and serious (and on the New Jersey Nets), and unfortunately it leads to the conclusion that his death didn't make a very big splash here in the U.S.

    Maybe the filmmaker wanted to make up for that, but I don't think he had enough to work with. Drazen wasn't a strong enough figure to center the movie around. I empathized with Vlade but he went on to have a great career and was relatively untouched by the war. His relationship with Drazen felt more like simple friendship than brotherhood to me. The stuff about the war was compelling but took a backseat to the basketball stuff.

    I enjoyed it overall, I just don't know if it was 30 for 30 worthy. It's a shame, since the people who don't remember Drazen Petrovic will never know how good he would've been.

    October 14, 2010 at 11:03AM EST Reply to Comment
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      Clay I loved the clips showing Drazen pumping his fists and celebrating! He brought life and fun to the NBA and he was the greatest shooter I've ever seen - so fearless! I just wonder how good he would have been. He was All Star caliber but would he been a top 5 player?

      October 14, 2010 at 4:38PM EST
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      Boris Jesse: " His relationship with Drazen felt more like simple friendship than brotherhood to me."

      That's becuase "brothers" is a term loaded with two (or three) meanings, of which the non-obvious ones are indiscernible to people who aren't knowledgable of ex-Yugoslavia. So, if you'll allow me...

      meaning #2: Yugoslavia was a federation composed of 6 so-called "republics", a home to 6 ethnicities (each largely confined to its respective "republic", but also in not small a number dispersed accross the other 5 "republics"). In WW2, Croatia and some other republics officially fought on the side of the axis powers (causing some Serbs and Croats to go at each other), so the post-war Yugoslav reunion was held intact for 4 decades by the regime's official ideology called "brotherhood and unity". It was a century old Yugoslavian ("south"-Slavian) idea then, and according to it, Croatians and Serbs are "brothers" becuase both are of Slavic origin, and share a lot of history as well as the same language etc.

      meaning #3: The third meaning is similar, but it pertains only to a single nation. Namely, the Serbs, who no metter in which "republic", country or continent located, call each other - "brother". Vlade is a Serb, no news there. Now, it's not mentioned explicitly in the film (it is implicitly, by pointing the camera to Drazen's father's name on the mailbox), but Drazen is half Serbian (Serbian dad, Croatian mother), which, by patriarchal custom, means Drazen and Vlade are "brothers".

      October 18, 2010 at 1:18PM EST


  • I loved this story - as an Englishwoman, I knew nothing about the two men back then and lots about the Balkans conflict so to have it tied together like that made it especially poignant for me. Horribly sad but compelling viewing.

    October 15, 2010 at 1:35PM EST Reply to Comment
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    Boris

    Please bear in mind that this docu was made for the ex-Yugoslavian audience as much as for the American one. To us, the film is good, and we don't have the three complaints/questions you have. Actually, you'll perhaps see all three of them answered if you replace Drazen by Magic Johnson; Vlade by Shaq; Croatia by California; the 1992 LA Riots by the Californian War for Independence; war-torn Yugoslavia by the war-torn United States of America. Now, if Jordan made a docu after living for a long time away in the Gallactic Republic, what would you say to a Galaxian who complained the Jordan's childhood and his travelogue before he got to The States was too long?

    And, to resolve your doubt in your last question... the Croatian guy on the street in Zagreb, the croatian Capital, who followed Vlade Divac in order to say something to the camera, said: "Vlado Divac? Chetnik!" To call a Serb a "chetnik" is exactly the same as calling an African-American the N word, or calling an Italian "a fascist". (Divac didn't have that part translated because he didn't want to get down on that hater's level.) And the guy even mispronounced his name. Instead of "Vlade", he called him "Vlado", which is the Croatian variant of Vlad. It'd be like if a French guy on the street said to you "Jean Stockton?", while your name was John Stockton. Or a German guy saying "Johann Stockton?", or an Italian guy saying "Giovanni Stockton?" He maybe didn't mispronounce it on purpose; maybe he really doesn't know/remember Vlade's real name. He doesn't even know his name, but he has enough credit to yack at the camera about Vlade's ideological views? Yay.

    October 18, 2010 at 12:20PM EST Reply to Comment
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      Boris Hm, it looks like the post to which I replied has been removed...

      Anyway, the three complaints by that poster were:

      - too much time dedicated to Vlade's childhood
      - too much time dedicated to Vlade's travelogue
      - unclear if the people in Zagreb looked at him funny because of politics or bc of his physique

      October 18, 2010 at 12:30PM EST
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    Tobi

    I thought that to be one of the best 30 for 30's yet. It wasnt too long it was just the right amount of information and it was very, very moving. The whole balcan war subject is a very tricky one to operate in and I found it to be very balanced. As a german I can maybe relate to that time even more than the average american and I have to say that war cast a very big shadow not only over the balcan states but the americans and the europeans too. There were costly mistakes made on every side of that conflict, so I found that to be very painful to watch at times. The interviews were brutally honest at times and you still coul sense the reluctance on Kucoc's and Radja's side to talk about it.
    The only thing that I felt was off here was the details and one interview about the accident itself. It kind of let you believe that it was partly the female drivers fault that it happened. It would have been nice to hear from Klara Szalantzy, Drazens girlfriend. But that is maybe too much to ask for. By the way she is married to former german soccer player Oliver Bierhoff.

    October 19, 2010 at 7:10PM EST Reply to Comment
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      Christine C This was one of the best documentaries I've seen. That very last scene, where Vlade leaves a picture of him and Drazen at the gravesite, still puts a lump in my throat. I wonder if Dino R and Toni K even talk to Vlade any more.

      April 7, 2012 at 8:06PM EST
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    Brandon

    I first saw this film just as Vlade was drafted by the Lakers and they were showing him getting picked apart in practice. This of course came to me as comical given the imagery of Vlade getting dissected in practice falling in line with what most Americans thought of the early 90s Euro basketball player. Their version of our game translated about as well as their thick, Euro accents, and their thick Euro petchouli smelling beards*. Euros were where white basketball players went to make fun of clumsy basketball players. Now the joke's on the ABCs (American-born Caucasian) as there are barely enough of them left in the NBA to fill a squad.
    *No Euros were harmed in this demonstration.

    Being a Dallas Mavericks fan now, I am very aware, and thankful of Vlade and Drazen, given Dirk's talent, that Euros can ball.

    As I watched the rest of the clip with the Lakers I decided to check the dvr and invest fully in this operation. And it paid off.

    This film gave me a greater appreciation of Vlade's career and skillset as a passer. I already knew that he was a great passer, but this enriched my memory of both Vlade and Drazen.

    Also, the storytelling was--I don't know how true any of the flag story was--but the documentary had a story arc and a moral and it made you feel human. It was really well done and I want to congratulate everyone involved on a job well done. I was very moved by the full range of emotions that sports and life brings us each and every passing moment. I was happy when Drazen was experiencing success for the first time, scoring 40 on Jordan, fist-pumping so goofy and Euro-like; when Vlade went coast to coast with spin moves that would make even the most agile point guard smile--those were good moments. Hearing Petrovic's mother tell the story about visiting Drazen's grave and deliver the line about him being all of ours', I mean if you didn't get a little dusty, you're probably not a human.

    October 21, 2010 at 1:11AM EST Reply to Comment
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      brandon "Euros were where white people went to make fun of clumsy basketball players."

      Now we have Shawn Bradley.

      October 21, 2010 at 1:19AM EST
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    Branislav

    Whoever made this, ESPN I guess, thanks a lot! It is very touching story, especially as when I was younger I was watching Vlade and Dražen playing against each other. Vlade for Partizan and Dražen for Cibona.

    What a games was back then! I was pissed by Dražen as I am Partizan fun. That guy was... well I don't have right word... perfect in basketball! He simply could not miss. Every shot is a score. Impossible. I think Dražen was the best basketball player of all times.

    Too bad that we had stupid politicians who made a hell of life of all people in ex Yugoslavia...

    This is very touching and very sad story and I am recommending to it to all to see it and learn to keep your friends close whatever happens out there.

    November 7, 2010 at 8:41PM EST Reply to Comment
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    pogrom92

    Good documentary. Excellent directing. I viewed it in one sitting and probably held my breath for some periods. I am from Bosnia and relate to the story somewhat.
    That said, the "chetnik" comment by the Croatian passerby didn't surprise me especially after a 3 finger provocation at the gold medal ceremony. Vlade was obviously their ringleader.

    June 9, 2011 at 4:26PM EST Reply to Comment
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    ajgold19

    This was one of my favorites because of the way it weaved the war in with the players it is just an incredible story

    November 2, 2011 at 10:50PM EST Reply to Comment

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