Good Stock

If only Sacramento fans had known then what they know now. Stojakovic has become the player Petrie envisioned—an inside-outside threat with Baryshnikov's grace and one of the game's sweetest three-point strokes (42.5% through Tuesday). While Stojakovic quickly established himself as a long-range specialist, this season he has also been driving with increased confidence. In a 112-110 overtime loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in November, Stojakovic, standing along the baseline, pump-faked Robert Horry, juked left and then drove right, slamming the ball with two hands. He had seldom felt the need to dunk, but this season, in an attempt to show he has the complete NBA arsenal, he has thrown down the ball some 20 times.

"I honestly believe Peja's the best shooter in the league," says Kings All-Star forward Chris Webber. "He can hit from anywhere at any time, he's a great athlete, and he cuts the hardest without the ball of anyone I've seen—like he's from Princeton. He just loves that orange ball. He's the first to pick it up, the last to put it down."

In his first two seasons Stojakovic would lose sleep over missed jumpers and tough losses. This year he has taken his bad games (seven points, 3-for-15 shooting, 0 for 7 on three pointers in an 81-75 win over the San Antonio Spurs on Dec. 5) and amazing ones (33 points, 5 of 7 threes against the Phoenix Suns in a 121-117 overtime win on Tuesday) in the same easygoing stride. "Peja's mature for his age," says Sacramento coach Rick Adelman. It is, Stojakovic acknowledges, harder to view an athletic event as a question of life or death when life or death matters have been part of your everyday existence.

The Grocery managerial position never came his way. Peja was 13, lying in bed, when he first heard the gunfire that became a nightly occurrence. He would walk down the street and see walls sprayed with bullet holes. His family, which is Serbian, and his Serbian friends were no longer welcome in Po?ega. This was civil war in Yugoslavia. "Suddenly, you didn't talk to the neighbors," he recalls. "During the night, the Croatians would try and scare the Serbian people. We lost everything—the house, the business, our possessions."

Within months Miodrag, Branka and their two sons loaded the car and drove 150 miles east to Belgrade. They went from spacious house to so-so apartment, from well-off to struggling. They also went from small-town nothingness to basketball mecca. Belgrade is the hoops capital of Yugoslavia, home to the country's two elite clubs, Partizan and Red Star. When he was 14, Peja auditioned for Red Star's junior team. He was raw but athletic, unsure but 6'4". "They kept me, and I go from playing twice a week to practicing twice a day," he says. "I learned that I could be very good."

After one season Stojakovic was promoted to Red Star's professional team. He was 6'7" and 15 years old, attending high school, performing in front of thousands of fans and earning a healthy income. In his first pro game, an exhibition win over Partizan, Stojakovic scored four points in five junk minutes. There were 6,000 people in attendance. "I was shaking the whole time," he says. "I was a boy playing with men."

When the season ended, Red Star offered Stojakovic a six-year contract. He refused to sign for more than four. The team insisted on six. He wouldn't budge. Finally, with the blessing of his parents, Peja shocked Red Star by agreeing to a five-year deal with PAOK, the Greek Professional League power. He and the rest of his family moved to Thessaloniki. It was their first step toward America. "I was happy, but I was scared," Branka says. "He was still growing up. This was a big change."

"He was 18, holding his own against Xavier McDaniel and Dominique Wilkins," says Funderburke, one of Stojakovic's PAOK teammates in 1995-96. "Back then he would ask me if he had what it takes to make it in the NBA. I told him the truth: Yes. He was the best young player in Europe. The only thing he needed to work on was not backing down from players, not giving in if a guy pushed or shoved. It took time, but he got it. Peja became a tough kid."

In January 1994, Petrie, the Portland Trail Blazers' senior vice president of operations at the time, was in Europe to negotiate with center Arvydas Sabonis, who then played for Real Madrid of the Spanish League. On a free day Petrie attended a PAOK practice. At the time, Stojakovic was an obscure rookie who had yet to be activated. "He was big, he could run, he was a jump shooter, and he was competing against guys who were seven, eight years older," says Petrie. "The kid had an NBA-type game."

He drafted Stojakovic 2� years later, gambling that Stojakovic would be able to get out of a Greek contract extension considered shaky because his father had signed for him. PAOK argued that Stojakovic owed it two more seasons; Miodrag, too, felt his son should remain in Greece, to get more seasoning. After much huffing and puffing and deliberating, Peja—who insists he wanted to come to Sacramento ASAP—stayed with PAOK. Although Petrie was disappointed then, he believes everything worked out for the best: Stojakovic continued to develop, scoring 23.9 points per game while winning the 1997-98 Greek League MVP award. In the meantime the Kings signed center Vlade Divac, a Serb who would ease Peja's transition to the U.S.