http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/story/13259742p-14102250c.html
After battling for 16 years on the NBA hardwood, former King Vlade Divac may have taken his final shot
By Joe Davidson -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Vlade Divac shuffled upcourt, checked by a foe a good two feet his junior.
The 7-foot Serbian was stripped, laughed about it, then was intercepted another time and laughed some more. It was his first basketball action of any note since his brief Los Angeles Lakers run last season, and you can be sure the smaller guys raced home Monday afternoon to alert their moms of the news.
OK, so Divac hustled downcourt in sandals, denim shorts and a broad smile beneath his sturdy stubble. He was horsing around with droves of 10-to 12-year-old youngsters on the first day of the annual basketball camp he conducts with fellow countryman and former Kings comrade Peja Stojakovic at Folsom High School, the proceeds benefiting a number of local and international charities.
That Divac is here - happy, content, the life of the party - is no surprise. This is Vlade. The NBA will be hard-pressed to find a better goodwill ambassador, with the genuine big heart and gift of giving. That he may not be property of an NBA team for the first time since 1988 next season should also come as no real surprise. This is Vlade, a career fading to black, seemingly headed toward retirement. At 37, he's a relic in a young man's game.
Divac may be done as a professional and he's sounding OK with it. Once the soul of Sacramento's best teams, Divac is in a financial holding pattern. The Lakers can buy out the final year of the two-year free-agent deal he signed last summer for $2 million, or they pay him $5.4 million to suit up next season, which seems unlikely since the Lakers are hammered by the salary cap and are suddenly center heavy with incumbent Chris Mihm, freshly drafted prep Andrew Bynum and recently acquired Kwame Brown.
And Divac is no fool. To retire now would be to forfeit any chance of a Lakers buyout. He understands the good sense of collecting the good dollar.
Still, is the end of Vlade near?
"I don't know, but whatever happens, I'm at peace with it," Divac said. "If I come back and play, and I'll only play for the Lakers, I'll be happy. I thought I could have helped the Lakers last year if I wasn't hurt with my back.
"If I retire, I look back and I am very happy. I've had a great career, much longer than I ever thought."
Divac sometimes speaks of his career in a past tense, if that's any indication of where he's headed. And he expected a much better victory lap to his career. After six seasons he regarded as the "best of my career" with the Kings, his second Lakers stint never got off the ground. He wrenched his back before the season started, in a voluntary workout, and he managed only 15 games.
Now he waits and wonders. Will his back withstand a 17th NBA season? He's confident that it will, though he reminds, "I'm not 25 anymore. I'm old now." If nothing else, Divac said he can provide a wealth of knowledge and life lessons to the younger Lakers.
And there's the Phil Jackson irony. The Kings' nemesis for all those torturous playoff runs - the Lakers prevailed in three successive series - were coached by Jackson. He's now back with the Lakers, a challenge Divac said he covets.
"I hope Vlade plays again," Kings guard Mike Bibby said from his own basketball camp down the road. "I love Vlade as a person, and he's been a great player in this league for a long time."
Alex Dimitrijevic idolized Divac during the center's youth playing days in Croatia. They later became friends, with Dimitrijevic serving as the administrator to Divac's charities, including the Folsom camp.
"Vlade playing is like having a basketball in a basketball game, it always happens," Dimitrijevic said. "If it's basketball season, Vlade was playing somewhere. And as big as Vlade is here in Sacramento, he's huge in his (native land), enormous. He'll always do these kinds of camps."
Divac verified as much. He started camps in the early 1990s when his native country of Yugoslavia was crushed by war. He grows serious and somber in talking about how such a beautiful region with "so many wonderful people" was transformed into so much rubble, with shattered families and sudden orphans. The money generated by Divac's camps and clinics provides a trickle of help and hope.
"All those kids, all those older people who worked so hard to provide for their families and to lose so much," Divac said. "Peja and me, we're fortunate that we can help. These camps, it's kids helping other kids, local kids helping kids way over there. Me and Peja are the bridge."
In an effort for his own three children to experience a taste of the world, or something away from the couch and video games, is to have them planted across the planet this summer. Luka, 13, is in Spain as a foreign exchange student.
Petra, 7, is in Serbia visiting grandparents. Matija, 12, is in Divac's camp at Folsom. He's the kid who forgot his socks, apparently watching his dad go sockless with the sandals himself an hour earlier.
Divac ordered up more socks. He also offered insight on post play to others. He preached unselfish play and to respect others. He offered a hand to a kid who ran square into the basketball support pole and lost.
And, during a stoppage of play, he knew exactly when to surrender a fan's infant, right when the baby offered up a liquid belch that splattered on the concrete outside the gym.
"See," Divac said. "I can still pass pretty good."
The Bee's Joe Davidson can be reached at (916) 321-1280 or jdavidson@sacbee.com.
After battling for 16 years on the NBA hardwood, former King Vlade Divac may have taken his final shot
By Joe Davidson -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Vlade Divac shuffled upcourt, checked by a foe a good two feet his junior.
The 7-foot Serbian was stripped, laughed about it, then was intercepted another time and laughed some more. It was his first basketball action of any note since his brief Los Angeles Lakers run last season, and you can be sure the smaller guys raced home Monday afternoon to alert their moms of the news.
OK, so Divac hustled downcourt in sandals, denim shorts and a broad smile beneath his sturdy stubble. He was horsing around with droves of 10-to 12-year-old youngsters on the first day of the annual basketball camp he conducts with fellow countryman and former Kings comrade Peja Stojakovic at Folsom High School, the proceeds benefiting a number of local and international charities.
That Divac is here - happy, content, the life of the party - is no surprise. This is Vlade. The NBA will be hard-pressed to find a better goodwill ambassador, with the genuine big heart and gift of giving. That he may not be property of an NBA team for the first time since 1988 next season should also come as no real surprise. This is Vlade, a career fading to black, seemingly headed toward retirement. At 37, he's a relic in a young man's game.
Divac may be done as a professional and he's sounding OK with it. Once the soul of Sacramento's best teams, Divac is in a financial holding pattern. The Lakers can buy out the final year of the two-year free-agent deal he signed last summer for $2 million, or they pay him $5.4 million to suit up next season, which seems unlikely since the Lakers are hammered by the salary cap and are suddenly center heavy with incumbent Chris Mihm, freshly drafted prep Andrew Bynum and recently acquired Kwame Brown.
And Divac is no fool. To retire now would be to forfeit any chance of a Lakers buyout. He understands the good sense of collecting the good dollar.
Still, is the end of Vlade near?
"I don't know, but whatever happens, I'm at peace with it," Divac said. "If I come back and play, and I'll only play for the Lakers, I'll be happy. I thought I could have helped the Lakers last year if I wasn't hurt with my back.
"If I retire, I look back and I am very happy. I've had a great career, much longer than I ever thought."
Divac sometimes speaks of his career in a past tense, if that's any indication of where he's headed. And he expected a much better victory lap to his career. After six seasons he regarded as the "best of my career" with the Kings, his second Lakers stint never got off the ground. He wrenched his back before the season started, in a voluntary workout, and he managed only 15 games.
Now he waits and wonders. Will his back withstand a 17th NBA season? He's confident that it will, though he reminds, "I'm not 25 anymore. I'm old now." If nothing else, Divac said he can provide a wealth of knowledge and life lessons to the younger Lakers.
And there's the Phil Jackson irony. The Kings' nemesis for all those torturous playoff runs - the Lakers prevailed in three successive series - were coached by Jackson. He's now back with the Lakers, a challenge Divac said he covets.
"I hope Vlade plays again," Kings guard Mike Bibby said from his own basketball camp down the road. "I love Vlade as a person, and he's been a great player in this league for a long time."
Alex Dimitrijevic idolized Divac during the center's youth playing days in Croatia. They later became friends, with Dimitrijevic serving as the administrator to Divac's charities, including the Folsom camp.
"Vlade playing is like having a basketball in a basketball game, it always happens," Dimitrijevic said. "If it's basketball season, Vlade was playing somewhere. And as big as Vlade is here in Sacramento, he's huge in his (native land), enormous. He'll always do these kinds of camps."
Divac verified as much. He started camps in the early 1990s when his native country of Yugoslavia was crushed by war. He grows serious and somber in talking about how such a beautiful region with "so many wonderful people" was transformed into so much rubble, with shattered families and sudden orphans. The money generated by Divac's camps and clinics provides a trickle of help and hope.
"All those kids, all those older people who worked so hard to provide for their families and to lose so much," Divac said. "Peja and me, we're fortunate that we can help. These camps, it's kids helping other kids, local kids helping kids way over there. Me and Peja are the bridge."
In an effort for his own three children to experience a taste of the world, or something away from the couch and video games, is to have them planted across the planet this summer. Luka, 13, is in Spain as a foreign exchange student.
Petra, 7, is in Serbia visiting grandparents. Matija, 12, is in Divac's camp at Folsom. He's the kid who forgot his socks, apparently watching his dad go sockless with the sandals himself an hour earlier.
Divac ordered up more socks. He also offered insight on post play to others. He preached unselfish play and to respect others. He offered a hand to a kid who ran square into the basketball support pole and lost.
And, during a stoppage of play, he knew exactly when to surrender a fan's infant, right when the baby offered up a liquid belch that splattered on the concrete outside the gym.
"See," Divac said. "I can still pass pretty good."
The Bee's Joe Davidson can be reached at (916) 321-1280 or jdavidson@sacbee.com.
