Once Brothers - the fall of Yugoslav basketball

[Mr. E]

In light of an earlier comment I felt like posting this link to what I believe should be must-watch viewing for fans of basketball. I'm talking the entire worldwide sport - not just the NBA or FIBA or anything else.

This is the ESPN 30 for 30 special Once Brothers, which discusses the phenomenal Yugoslav National Team of the 80's featuring the likes of Vlade Divac, Toni Kukoc, Dino Radja and the late, great Drazen Petrovic. It shows how they translated into the NBA game as about as big of outsiders as you could get at that point. Ultimately, it shows the tragedy of the break-up of Yugoslavia and how it affected people on a personal level that is sometimes lost when discussing major news stories.

Watch on YouTube

This is also available on Vimeo

https://vimeo.com/36827025

And you can also check it out on Netflix.

This runs an hour and 21 minutes. If you haven't watched it, it is well worth your time.

[jinxed]

I agree. Single best sports documentary I have ever seen.

[TheTrooper]

The only area in which I could be called "yugonostagic" is sport (if you can call me nostalgic about something that ended around the time I was born).
That Yugoslav generation was supposed to be great in every sport. If the country stayed for 10 more years it could have been a world champion in football (soccer),handball, volleyball,water polo and maybe even basketball.
The successor countries still benefit from the system that was put on at that time. Croatia, Serbia and the depending on the sport the other 4 countries are still forces to be reckoned with on their own. If they could find team chemistry I see no reason for Yugoslavia not to be dominant even today.

[Von Bismarck]

That documentary is absolute rubbish.

It absolutely amazes me that he involved Drazen, who is dead for 23 years now and cannot speak for himself anymore, and spread all the lies and nonsense publicly.

Divac was never Drazen's brother. He was never his best friend. Drazen's best friend was always Stojko Vrankovic. Why wasn't Stojko in that documentary? Yeah, it's not hard to figure that out.

[jinxed]

The only area in which I could be called "yugonostagic" is sport (if you can call me nostalgic about something that ended around the time I was born).
That Yugoslav generation was supposed to be great in every sport. If the country stayed for 10 more years it could have been a world champion in football (soccer),handball, volleyball,water polo and maybe even basketball.
The successor countries still benefit from the system that was put on at that time. Croatia, Serbia and the depending on the sport the other 4 countries are still forces to be reckoned with on their own. If they could find team chemistry I see no reason for Yugoslavia not to be dominant even today.

They were world champs in basketball. 2002.

And 1998, albeit no NBA players.

[Spalato]

I find Divac to be a bit insincere about his identity - says things than does things that totally contradict what he said. But that seems to be his personality overall because even the Serbian public aren't really fond of him.