He brought the champion's title to his team when he was 18 years old! They didn't believe that someone from here can play basketball like that! (VIDEO)

Drazen Petrovic, the best European player of all times, died 25 years ago, and that will be marked on 7 July. However, his NBA team Brooklyn Nets (previously New Jersey Nets), marked this jubilee on their match between Monday and Tuesday, which was attended by Drazen's mother, Biserka.

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They named this event "Drazen's night"

That is why this is the great story to remind ourselves on the master under the basket, the basketball Mozzard, as they called him, and probably the best European player ever.

Foto: Twitter/BrooklynNets, Guliver: Ken Levine/Getty Images

Born on October 22 in Sibenik, where he started his career, and then he was dominating Europe with Cibona with two titles of the champion of Old Continent and the Cup Winners' Cup.

He goes to Real Madrid and he wins the Cup Winners' Cup with 62 points in the final.

HE HAD BASKETBALL IN HIS BLOOD

While he was playing in Cibona during four seasons, his average was 37.7 points per game, 33.8 in European competitions. He won the Championship of Yugoslavia with Sibenik in 1983 and with the decisive points from the free throw, and he was only 18. 

That title was later taken from Sibenik and given to Bosnia, although that shouldn't happen according to the FIBA rules. Drazen was in the military in 1984 and he played for Partizan while he was in Belgrade. Black-and-whites wanted him but he told them he will go to the team which is first that year. Red Star had the opportunity that year, but Cibona took the title. 

Petrovic's numbers are amazing during his career. His personal records are 112 (against Olympia) and 62 against Real. 

His performance on the games often showed 40, 50, 60 points. In the game of European Champions Cup (today's Euroleague), against Limonge, Petrovic scored 9 three points, including seven in a row during the first half, for a total of 45 points and 25 assists.

After Cibona, he was drafted to Portland by Trail Blazers in the third round in 1986. However, he decided to postpone his coming to the US and he signed with Real Madrid in 1988, at the time, for the enormous amount of money of 4 million dollars.

JORDAN RESPECTED HIM

After his career in Real, where he won the Cup Winners' Cup, and the Cup of Spain, the moving to America came.

The best European player was forced to play on average 12 minutes per game, in the already well-established team, which enabled him to score 7.4 minutes per game.

The beginning of the season 1990-1991 brought Petrovic's dissatisfaction to the limit since his minutes fell down to 7.4 points per game. On his request, after 38 games in the season (and he didn't even play 20 of them), he decided to go to New Jersey Nets in the exchange of three teams.

There he responded to more minutes (20.5 m per game), scoring 12.6 points in 43 games for the nets.

The first complete season with the Nets was amazing: He didn't miss a single game, he was scoring 20.6 points for 39.9 minutes in the game, and he was the first one with the percentage of shoot above 50% (51%), he has proven himself to be the leader of the team and he was named the most useful team player. 

- It was exciting to play against Drazen. When he played, he played strong, very aggressive. He wasn't nervous, he would stand up to me with the same power I would attack. There were great duels. Unfortunately, they didn't last long. In the short period he played professional basketball, he was one of the more successful European players in NBA. The others tried to follow him - the legendary Michael Jordan said.

More importantly, his successes were passed on to the success of the team, since Nets scored 14 victories more than the previous season and they made it to the playoffs. Next season 1992-1993, Petrovic improved his average (22.3) and with again the great percentage of shooting for three points. The American media chose him into the third NBA team that season. However, failure to get the invitation to All-Star game 1993 came as a great disappointment for Petrovic; he was the only one among the first 15 shooters of the season who didn't receive the invitation. 

The same year, while he was preparing for the European Championship with Croatia, he died in a car crash on July 7th.

(Telegraf.co.uk / source: Wikipedia)