The Yugos Are Coming

Then there apparently is a big problem with the clock....

"Tell me, are all the games like this?" the tourist asks when action finally resumes in the tank, with Red Star on the way to a comeback 81-79 victory that makes the Wise Guys howl with delight.

"Oh, no," an English-speaking fan says. "This was wild only because these are rivals. Two teams from the same city. It's only like this for this game every year...and, well, for the big games, when first place is at stake...and, of course, the playoffs. All the playoffs."

Perfect.

The tourist has traveled to Yugoslavia to see why this has become the newest, hottest source of international basketball talent. There may be headier revolutions in Eastern Europe—the tourist's translator says he worked three weeks earlier in Romania and was terrified by the gunshots he could hear outside his hotel window—but this is the Eastern European country that is most intriguing to the American basketball community.

Divac, Paspalj and Drazen Petrovic of the Portland Trail Blazers are in the NBA. Dino Radja, the center for the Jugoplastika club in Split, would be with the Boston Celtics if they hadn't lost a legal battle with the club that will keep him from playing in the NBA until next season. Toni Kukoc, Radja's 21-year-old teammate, has been among the best players in Europe for the past two years and could be a pick in the top half of this year's NBA draft. Any number of younger Yugoslav players in the extensive age-group programs are going to bed at night dreaming they will be the next Magic Johnson or Larry Bird rather than the next hero of the state.

Why? Why here?

"We call it the Phenomenon of Yugoslavian Basketball," Rade Petrovic, secretary of the Yugoslav Basketball Federation, says. "The United States and Russia put five men on the court and have 200 million people standing behind them. We put five men on the court and have 20 million behind them. Yet, when the world championships and the Olympics come along, we always are in the finals. How do we do it? We are a small country. We have no money. We have nothing...only our medals."

Thirty years ago, there wasn't a bona fide gym in the entire country. The sport was an outdoor game, played only in the fall and spring. The national team practiced in an exposition hall at the ancient Kalemegdan, a fortress in Belgrade. There wasn't even room enough for a full court, and practice had to be suspended during expositions. Now there are gyms everywhere, teams everywhere. Yugoslavia is the basketball capital of Europe.

"If you're looking for important dates, you can start with 1960," Rade Petrovic says. "That year we finished sixth in the Olympics. It doesn't sound like much, but it was an indication we could play with the rest of the world. By the next year, we were playing for championships. We lose to the Soviet Union in the European championships in Belgrade. In '63 in the world championships in Rio, we beat the Soviet Union but lose to the U.S. in the finals. Then, in '70 in Ljubljana...."