What if Drazen Petrovic had signed with the Celtics in 1995?

[LooseCannon]

There is a new book about the Croatian basketball star.

According to the book, Drazen had decided to return to Europe and his first choice was Panathinaikos, even if he had many more offers. He wanted to stay for one or two seasons in Greece and then return to the NBA in order to sign with the Celtics. It’s been said that he had a soft spot for teams which had the shamrock as their emblem, like Panathinaikos, Notre Dame and the Celtics. Fate had other plans for him…

Petrovic died in the summer of 1993.  The 94-95 Celtics lost in the first round after squeaking into the playoffs with a 35-47 record using a starting lineup of Sherman Douglas/David Wesley, Dee Brown, Dominique Wilkins, Dino Radja, and Eric Montross.  The 95-96 season had Radja, Montross, Wesley, Brown, Dana Barros, Rick Fox, Greg Minor, Todd Day, Eric Williams, and Pervis Ellison all average at least 20 minutes per game while playing in at least 50 games, while finishing 33-49.

[Roy H.]

Cool story; I had never heard that.

I doubt that we could have done much more than become a middling playoff team, just because we were capped out and Drazen would have been 30 in that first season.  Still, it would have been awesome to see him in green.

[mr. dee]

Imagine a team with Len Bias, Reggie Lewis and Drazen Petrovic all together. One can only dream.

[Celts Fan 508]

Cool story; I had never heard that.

I doubt that we could have done much more than become a middling playoff team, just because we were capped out and Drazen would have been 30 in that first season.  Still, it would have been awesome to see him in green.

I agree, replace Wilkins with Drazen and the Celts move from the 8th seed to the 3 seed, I don't see them beating Indy or Orlando in the playoffs.  No Eastern conference team was beating the Rockets that season. 

[MJohnnyboy]

Imagine a team with Len Bias, Reggie Lewis and Drazen Petrovic all together. One can only dream.

Add Joe Dumars to that dream core. The Celtics were one pick away from getting him in 85.

[Celts Fan 508]

Imagine a team with Len Bias, Reggie Lewis and Drazen Petrovic all together. One can only dream.

Add Joe Dumars to that dream core. The Celtics were one pick away from getting him in 85.

The Celtics were also one pick away from Dirk, Duncan, and Durant off the top of my head, it means nothing.

[MJohnnyboy]

Imagine a team with Len Bias, Reggie Lewis and Drazen Petrovic all together. One can only dream.

Add Joe Dumars to that dream core. The Celtics were one pick away from getting him in 85.

The Celtics were also one pick away from Dirk, Duncan, and Durant off the top of my head, it means nothing.

Well, while the Celtics were a pick away from Dirk, they still got Pierce so there's not a lot to complain about there. They were 2 picks from Duncan and 3 picks away from Durant.

The difference between those guys and Dumars is that those guys were all top-lotto picks. Dumars was at the very end of the round when he was drafted. He was a huge steal. Very rarely do end of the round draft picks pan out so it could have been special. Plus imagine how well the Celtics could have drafted in those three years.

85-Dumars 86-Bias 87-Lewis. Pretty awesome trio. And technically, none of these hypothetical teams mean anything because they aren't reality, but a guy can't help but wonder right?

[317]

i wish i was older and had seen Petrovic play more then just watching a few clips. i do remember a NBA game on the SNES before Jordan got his name removed that also had Petrociv. if the game was anything to go by (and other sources confirm this) he was one of the best shooters of his time.

[Celtics4ever]

Kind of moot as he sadly passed in 1993.