Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 10:00 am  |  21 responses

Video: Celebrating Vlade Divac’s Career

No Sacramento King will ever wear no.21 again:

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  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBQEmmgDl9I Boing Dynasty

    Why did they have to do this on a Tuesday?

  • http://roger.agincourtmedia.com/ Roger Benningfield

    Poor Vlade & Chris… if the zone had arrived just a few years earlier, they’d have at least a couple rings together.

  • underdog

    I seriously don’t understand why the Kings retried his jersey? I’m not a hater, I just didn’t manage to figure it out…

  • MikiC

    Will be remembered as one of the best passing big men, great fighter and true teammate. This guy did so much off the court charity work, so they retired his jersey for his humanitarian work as well as his game.

  • pablo (from argentina)

    Thanks for the memories

  • NJ4Life

    I’m half shocked Vlade didn’t fall down when webber went to hug him.

  • http://www.lkz.ch Darksaber

    anyone remember the 91 finals (MJ’s first) game, when Vlade hit a cool off balance shot late in the game (3,4??) looked like the game winner, opened his mouth wide in disbelief/shock and then fell into Magic’s waiting embrace? That was a fantastic Divac, no, basketball moment.

  • thesubwayconnection

    As much as he flopped, I <3 Vlade. So smooth.

  • http://slamonline.com Russ Bengtson

    Touching and everything, but the Kings are really lowering the bar when it comes to number retirements. The fact that a Kings team that never even made it to the Finals has retired the same amount of numbers as a Bulls team that won six championships over the course of a decade is staggering.

  • http://shawn-kemps-offspring.blogspot.com Cheryl

    You want staggering, Russ? Try an NBA franchise who has retired jerseys of guys who didn’t even PLAY for that team–even that friggin sport! Now, that’s staggering. And retiring #33 still does not redeem them.

  • http://shawn-kemps-offspring.blogspot.com Cheryl

    In fact, while I have my soapbox, the player whose jersey got retired first was the sam guy responsible for much of said team’s misery. How’s that for staggering.

  • http://slamonline.com Russ Bengtson

    The Heat are a whole different story entirely.

  • http://www.shawn-kemps-offspring.blogspot.com Eboy

    Cheryl has misplaced anger.

  • http://shawn-kemps-offspring.blogspot.com Cheryl

    Well, not anger really. I just have always thought it was silly to have Dan Marino and MJ’s jerseys retired in the Heat’s arena. Retired jersies should be for players who meant a lot to the success of the organization. To have it be anything else, to me, cheapens the whole retired jersey thing. ‘Zo’s should have been first and Wade’s second–if he spends the majority of his career there. Anyway…

  • http://www.shawn-kemps-offspring.blogspot.com Eboy

    Cheryl…..I understood the Michael move more than the Marino one…..although now that Dan is a fixture at the games it’s not as surprising. When your team really has no “legendary” player to throw it’s support behind…..and at that point 5 years ago it really didn’t…..why not a)dedicate a bit of a tribute to your local hero as a way of having inter-league synergy? and b)the MJ thing……he’s about as tied to the first few Heat playoff runs as Rony Seiklay and Glen Rice…..and later Tim and Zo’s years…..so it’s a respect move…..and Riley has always had that calling card. I’ve said this before…..if Riley could someone wrangle Lebron to Miami, that #23 would be down quicker than a $20 dollar wh…..well pretty quick.

  • http://shawn-kemps-offspring.blogspot.com Cheryl

    Yeah, I get the sentiment, but at the time, the team was still “young” and I understood that it take a little while for franchises to be considered “storied”, especially championship teams. I’m not dissing the sentiment, but retired jerseys harken to the Russells, Chamberlains, Birds, Johnsons, etc. When clubs start putting “any ‘ol” jerseys up in the rafters because, “well the guy was really liked” or in MJ’s case “if not for this dude, we’d've won one before now” kind of respect, it just misses the point of jersey retiring all together. I’m just old skool like that.

  • Pic

    Did they retire Richmond’s #2 yet?

  • http://www.triplejunearthed.com/dacre Dacre

    The only words I understood from Stojakovic was…friend…serbia…I luv yooo…

  • Blinguo

    Mitch Rich is in the rafters yes, so is a #6 for the King’s fans, which is weirder than Vlade:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento_Kings#Retired_numbers

  • http://www.ref-ump.com Jack the Referee

    I remember having Vlade meant that the Sacramento Kings had game and with Bibby, C-Webb, Stoyakovich… They brought it each and every game and I approve of his number being raised… A great Serbian warrior gets his nite.

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