An Athlete with Class

Tonight the Sacramento Kings will retire the Jersey of #21 Vlade Divac. For those of us who live here in Sacramento we know that Vlade was at least as important as any other King during the glory years between 1999 and 2005. No Vlade was not the most talented players on the team (that honor would have to go to Chris Webber) but he was clearly the leader. Divac's playing skills have always been under appreciated- a typical game for Vlade would be somewhere between 10 and 15 points, 7 to 10 rebounds and 5 to 8 assists-stats that can only appreciated by the true Basketball fan. More than his playing ability though was Vlade's ability to lead and his professionalism. With Divac you never heard any griping about anything (unless it was to the ref's after one of his famous flops) and there was never a hint of any kind of unethical behavior.

Most importantly Divac set the tone for the Kings-he never got to high and he never got too low-once the game was over he was ready to move on to the next game. As Kings fans we often complained about his inabiltiy to jump or how he could not do this or he could not do that-Vlade we were wrong ! Welcome home and THANKS for everything you did for us.