Serbia's Basketball Player Vlade Divac Into Hall Of Fame

Vlade Divac, who has won Olympic basketball silver with Yugoslavia and further on with Serbia, lauded the game's energy and ability to bridge divides as he has been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on September 6, this year.
Drafted into the NBA in the year 1989 by the Los Angeles Lakers, Divac has become one of the first European players to cast an impact in the league.
Mentored by Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, he quickly and very rapidly adapted with the NBA and became the first player born and trained outside the United States to play more than 1,000 games in the league.
Among those he thanked in his induction speech on that day was his former Yugoslav teammate named Toni Kukoc who is a Croatian.
Divac said that the people of the Balkans are like a dysfunctional family. They may fight and argue, but by the end they are family who have spent eight years with the Lakers and have played six with the Sacramento Kings where he is general manager now.
Divac has been part of Hall of Fame class since 2019 and has inducted in Springfield, Massachusetts, that has also included Sidney Moncrief, Bobby Jones, Paul Westphal, Jack Sikma, , Al Attles, Bill Fitch and Teresa Weatherspoon.
Carl Braun and Chuck Cooper were inducted posthumously.
Cooper died in 1984, and was a Boston Celtics forward who was earlier the first African-American player that was drafted by the NBA. He had made his debut in 1950 at the same time as Nat Clifton and Earl Lloyd.
Son of Chuck Cooper III said that the NBA's colour barrier was broken, and the game of basketball was forever changed from then.
Overall 6th September had all these changes related to NBA.

By: Prerana Sharma
Content: https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/basketball/basketball-serbias-vlade-divac-inducted-into-hall-of-fame