CAMP DIVAC : Hawaii Is No Vacation for Yugoslav Center as He Crams to Learn Language and Get Up to Lakers’ Speed

HONOLULU — They moved in that fluid syncopation basketball players often strive to reach. Back and forth they ran in a full-court break, choreographed by Pat Riley but flawlessly conducted by Magic Johnson, until a discordant note interrupted the flow.

The ball cocked in his right hand for a pass and his legs positioned for maximum mobility, Johnson abruptly stopped. His startling shout temporarily broke the drill’s rhythm and muffled the screech and pounding of sneakers on hardwood.

“Vlade, run!”

Vlade Divac ran.

He went instantly from loping to sprinting Arms churning and head twisted back to follow the ball’s flight, Divac caught up to Johnson’s long lob pass. He laid the ball in the basket with a practiced nonchalance, rather than dunking it with a vengeance.

That incident was not about language barriers or cultural differences or any of the other inherent difficulties that Divac, the 7-foot-1 Yugoslav star, will face in his transition to the National Basketball Assn. this season.

This early training-camp lesson was about mastering the subtleties of Laker basketball, which in the Earvin Johnson era has redefined the fast break and running game. Nothing was lost in translation, only in transition.

Divac’s ability to adapt to this style, perhaps more than any other factor, will probably determine the extent of his success with the Lakers this season as well as the Lakers’ success at the outset of the post-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar era.

“I think Vlade’s a good player but he has a tendency to be a little lazy,” Johnson said after the incident. “Maybe over there (in Europe), he was so talented that he could get away with coming at a different speed than what we’re accustomed to. But Riley wants you to do things quick, because he wants you playing quick. So, he’s got to get used to that.”

It was only the first day of training camp at Otto Klum Gymnasium at the University of Hawaii, not the Palace in Auburn Hills, Mich., during the NBA finals. Divac ( Dee -votch), judged by some as this season’s most promising European hoop export, has plenty of time to learn.

The Lakers realize that Divac is only 21 and that, despite his extensive Olympic and international experience, they will need to exercise patience during this developmental period.

They seem willing to wait--until his English skills improve to the point that he can schmooze with Jack Nicholson and Dyan Cannon on the sidelines, until his passive style grows into an aggressive, power game--because already they detect the talent Divac has.

The next day, after again showing Divac fast-break techniques in crude pantomime, Johnson issued an endorsement.

“He can do a lot of things,” Johnson said. “He can run and he can catch the ball (well) for a big man. He can play. “

His life would appear to be in a transition as dizzyingly swift as a Laker fast break.

In the last four months alone, Divac has been drafted by an NBA team, married in Belgrade and drafted by the Yugoslav army, then later deferred. He has honeymooned in Spain, moved from Belgrade to Marina del Rey and has joined players he knows only by reputation and from limited foreign television coverage.

But if Divac is feeling at all disoriented or homesick, it does not show. He sat in a seaside restaurant, his back to the breaking surf, after the Lakers’ first training camp workout last week and seemed content and comfortable, apparently happy to be here. Maybe it is because Divac is fulfilling his career ambition of playing against the world’s best players in the NBA, something that most of Eastern Europe’s players thought impossible a few years ago.

He and Snezana, his wife, have made sacrifices, though, such as leaving family behind and moving to a city where they not only know no one but where they don’t even speak the language, although she is a little better off than he in that regard.

Divac, however, has made sacrifices before. The youngest of Milenko Divac’s two sons, Vlade left the small town of Prijepolje, in Serbia, at 12 to play basketball on a cadet team in Kraljevo, in the Ibar Valley about four hours by train from his birthplace.

A cadet team serves as part of a farm system for the junior and senior divisions, and Divac said he left home because his village was too small to have a competitive team.

Big for his age--for any age, actually--Divac quickly developed into one of Yugoslavia’s most promising players. In Kraljevo, which translates in English to King’s Town, Divac became basketball royalty. At 16, when most basketball players are in the junior league, Divac had already advanced to seniors, the Yugoslav equivalent of the NBA.

His father, a retired executive of an electronics firm, made sure Vlade completed high school, even though the youngster’s basketball travels took him all over Europe and to the West. In 1985, at 17, Divac led the Yugoslav Junior Olympic team to the gold medal in the World University Games.

“Since the age of 12, I was on my own,” Divac said through an interpreter. “Everything I do, I get my parents’ support. Sure, they aren’t crazy about me going such a long distance, but they realize it’s a great opportunity.”

In Yugoslavia, Divac went as far as he could in basketball. He was the starting center on the Yugoslav Olympic team, averaging 11.7 points and 6.5 rebounds at Seoul for the silver-medal winners. For the last three seasons, he has averaged about 20 points and 10 rebounds for Belgrade Partizan, one of the stronger teams in the Yugoslav league.

About this time last year, Divac decided he wanted a change. He said he considered fulfilling his obligation to Partizan, then jumping to Spain for more money and better competition this season.

“I was thinking of playing in Spain, until I played against the Boston Celtics (in the McDonald’s Classic last October in Madrid), and (then) I felt I could play in the NBA,” he said.

Divac had a modest game, statistically, scoring nine points and grabbing eight rebounds. But he held his own against the Celtics’ Kevin McHale, which bolstered his confidence and fueled his desire to play in the NBA.

Under NBA rules, all European players must be drafted in their 21st years, so Divac’s timing could not have been better. Divac was contacted by Marc Fleisher, a New York-based agent, and they decided that he would put his name in for the draft.

It was not quite that easy, however. The Yugoslav Basketball Federation had to approve, as did Partizan. Divac assured the federation that he would play for his country in major international competition, and advised Partizan that there would be cash compensation.

“They were all for it,” Divac said of his Belgrade club, which retained his European rights. “When I had this chance to go, I went with (Partizan’s) blessing. They, in turn, were mad at the federation for not wanting me to go.”

But weren’t the Partizan fans upset at losing their star player, a situation akin to the Lakers losing Magic Johnson to the Italian league?

“The fans also were supportive,” Divac said, smiling slightly. “There are three players in America from Yugoslavia now. It is an honor for the country. People understand that.”

In Belgrade and everywhere else in the six socialist republics of Yugoslavia, which is about the size of Oregon, Divac and other top basketball players are treated with the kind of celebrity reserved here for the NBA’s best.

Divac; Drazen Petrovic, now of the Portland Trail Blazers; Zarko Paspalj, now of the San Antonio Spurs, and Dino Radja, who will play for the Celtics next season, may be little known here but they are household names from Slovenia to Macedonia.

“All four of us who came here, we all were like the Larry Birds, Magic Johnsons and Michael Jordans of our country,” said Radja, who recently returned to Yugoslavia after the Celtics lost a suit filed by Radja’s team in Split. “Here, we are just players like everyone else. But we still are some kind of good players. We come here because we are good.

“Soccer is still more popular in our country, but we are talked about on the street. Vlade and I are too big to play soccer, anyway.”

Miro Copic, a sportswriter in Split who once was a correspondent in New York for his publication, said recently that Yugoslav fans are excited about the impression that Divac and the others will make on America’s basketball fans.

Copic said only some fans with cable television in Croatia and Slovenia will be able to watch NBA games, courtesy of Italian networks.

“For only the last three or four years, basketball has almost been as popular as soccer,” Copic said. “All the championship matches have been sold out. As a member of one of the two or three strongest teams, Vlade was one of the most popular players.

“It’s almost like a fantasy here to watch the (high level of play in) NBA games. A lot of people here know Magic Johnson. When our fans heard that Vlade left, they were happy for him.”

Copic, however, admitted that attrition has affected the quality of the Yugoslav league.

“They don’t have a lot of really good players,” Copic said. “One leaves, we have no one that good to replace (him). We’ve lost four (now only three) main players. But they did not try to prevent them from going over to (the United States). Maybe they come back better players.”

Divac says he has every intention of returning to Yugoslavia, eventually. First, though, he wants to experience the competition in the NBA and the cultural differences between the United States and his country.

And maybe, he will return even more popular than before.

“We’re the big players in Yugoslavia, and we went just so far,” he said. “We could not go any farther. So, here we are with an opportunity to see if we can go farther.”

People back home, no doubt, will be keeping track of Divac’s progress. After all, in Belgrade they watched his wedding on television.

“I’m a private person,” Divac said. “(A camera crew) just happened to show up. They said they just wanted a minute (to film the wedding) and it turned into one and half hours.”

Does Divac expect such probing from press in the United States?

“All newspapermen are the same,” he said.

Yugoslav humor, as delivered by Divac:

“Did you hear the one about the baby in Belgrade that was born with more eyes than teeth?”

All right, so it is not exactly a Jay Leno knee-slapper, and maybe something gets lost in the translation. But that joke--more like a riddle, actually--marked a major step in Divac’s grasp of English.

Divac and his wife sat across from Diana Platt, a language tutor hired by the Lakers, in their Marina del Rey apartment. He was asked to tell a joke, not in his native Serbo-Croatian but in English.

It was shortly before Divac left for training camp, and Platt, who works at the English Language Center in Westwood, said that after six weeks of nightly tutoring, Divac had grasped the rudiments of English.

“But he is still speaking at beginning levels,” she said. “We’re working a lot on conversation, comprehension and reading.

“I take along tapes and books and use those as a departure point for conversation. His comprehension is good, but he still has problems speaking. The hardest way to learn is when you’re his age and stuck in the foreign land and forced to do it. That’s difficult.”

Just how far Divac has progressed, Platt is not sure.

Would Divac understand, for instance, when the plumber says he will arrive between 8 and 5 o’clock?

“Oh sure, I think he’d understand,” Platt said.

Would he understand if Laker Coach Pat Riley, before 15,000 screaming fans at the Forum, told him to post low and watch for James Worthy cutting to the basket?

“I don’t know if it’s my place to answer that,” Platt said. “My feeling is, he’d pick up that jargon.

“I’ve found that Vlade knows a lot about our culture. We talk about movies all the time. But, yes, there still are a lot of things he still doesn’t understand.”

Interviews certainly are not foreign to Divac, even if the interviewers he encounters these days are.

Since August, when he signed with the Lakers, Divac has been approached by many reporters, as much as a curiosity as a player. He is starting to comprehend and respond.

In a recent interview, he chose to answer a few simple questions in English before turning to interpreter Alex Omalev.

Divac tilted his angular face forward and strained to understand the question, “How was your first practice?”

Divac smiled and nodded to confirm he understood.

“Very good practice,” he said in the deep voice you would expect from a 7-footer. “But (I am) tired after it. Very different practice from Yugoslavia to the Lakers. I mean, (it was) very strong, very run (-oriented). Good practice.”

Only when the questions become more complicated or pertained to subjects other than basketball does Divac defer to Omalev.

After struggling with English, Divac seems relieved to revert to Serbo-Croatian. The words rush out in gurgling torrents, punctuated by gestures and expressive brow furrowing.

By now, Divac is used to being asked about the cultural differences between Belgrade and Los Angeles. Either he has too much media savvy to say otherwise or he actually believes there are no major differences between the cities.

Through Omalev, Divac said: “I can’t think of a better city in the world than Los Angeles.”

Divac made no mention of smog, crime, grime, polluted beaches and gridlock.

In Belgrade, however, the average temperature in October is a mild 65 degrees, the population is 1.5 million and the Adriatic Highway can be traveled on at 50 m.p.h., even during rush hour. And, along the Dalmatian coast, the water is clear and warm and tourists come from Italy to vacation.

“L.A. is very big and very nice city,” Divac said. “Belgrade does have about a million people. But in Belgrade, you can walk at 2 o’clock (in the morning) and not be afraid.” Divac does a lot of walking. He and Snezana have grown familiar with the Marina del Rey area that way. He has yet to venture a little north to Venice beach, however, where an assortment of life styles and hair styles converge.

“No, I haven’t heard of it,” Divac said of Venice.

Omalev then tried to explain roller skaters to Divac. Divac did not seem too clear on that.

He does, however, like Los Angeles’ beaches as much as those along the Adriatic.

“The water is clearer in the Adriatic, and there is one area in the southern part of the Montenegran coastline with sandy beaches,” Divac said. “The rest is all rocky beaches.”

Making friends has been more difficult because of the language barrier, but Divac has met with a few Yugoslav expatriates and descendants. He passed his driver’s test on the second try and said he plans to buy a Porsche 944 when he returns to Los Angeles after the exhibition season.

But Divac acknowledged that the success of his cultural adaptation, as well as his role with the Lakers, depends on his ability to communicate in English.

“At first, it was hard, because my wife had English in Yugoslavia and she was ahead of me,” Divac said. “That was kind of discouraging at first, but now I am starting to put things together, and that is better.”

Omalev said he has noticed improvement in Divac’s comprehension, as well as his understanding of Western culture, in the two months abroad.

“When we were in Dallas recently (for an NBA-sponsored rookies’ seminar), he understood the ‘Dead Poet’s Society’ film we saw,” Omalev said. “We watched ‘Field of Dreams’ together the other night, and we talked about it.”

There are, of course, more than just communication adjustments. Divac, as well as the other Yugoslavs playing in the NBA, has had to deal with new-found wealth. Divac earned the United States equivalent of $12,000 for Partizan last season, and Radja said the good Yugoslav players earn the equivalent of about $9,000.

“With the rate of exchange, the (Yugoslav salary) is pretty good money,” Divac said. “It is $500 a month for an apartment in Yugoslavia. But in Los Angeles, it might be about $2,000 a month.”

Although Divac downplays the monetary differences and says the dinar goes a lot further in Belgrade than the dollar does in Los Angeles, others close to him have remarked on the drastic raise in pay.

“Going shopping for an apartment with him was quite an experience,” Fleisher said. “Everything was bigger and more expensive than he paid back home. But he was looking at ocean-front housing, and there would be no way he could afford that in Yugoslavia.

“I talked to him on the phone (before training camp) and he was all excited about going shopping for a Porsche. He couldn’t afford that (in Yugoslavia), either.”

If money is important to Divac, he does not let on. His enthusiasm for the game is so fervent that it seems to overshadow anything else. As long as Divac is playing basketball, he does not worry about cultural stumbling blocks.

“I called Vlade a few times (last summer) and we talked about (the United States),” Radja said. “He said Los Angeles was (a) big city. He talked about lifting weights and about meeting (Kareem) Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson. That made a big impression.”

It was 4 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, and the ramshackle Otto Klum Gymnasium was not merely humid. It was Boston Garden steamy. The Lakers’ practice would not begin for another hour, but two 7-footers were sweating and grunting, pushing and elbowing mightily in the low post.

Abdul-Jabbar, wearing red-striped Hawaiian shorts, jogging shoes and a serious expression, was tutoring Divac on the rigors and peculiarities of playing center in the NBA.

Speaking slowly and showing more than telling, Abdul-Jabbar worked with Divac on such basics as establishing position just outside the key, spin moves to the basket after receiving a pass and subtle ways of denying an opposing center the ball.

Once when Divac had the ball, Abdul-Jabbar leaned his still lithe frame against him. Divac turned and, instead of moving toward the basket, took a fadeaway jump shot. He made it and looked satisfied but Abdul-Jabbar shook his head.

“That’s not what we want,” Abdul-Jabbar said, then waited for Omalev’s translation. “You want to go strong to the basket.”

They tried again. The next time, Divac dipped a shoulder and muscled in and missed a left-handed hook.

“That’s what we want,” Abdul-Jabbar said.

It is still early, of course, but the Lakers have struggled to make Divac understand what they want from him.

That’s why Omalev is here. The 69-year-old Omalev, of Yugoslav descent, coached for many years at Fullerton College and Cal State Fullerton and has given basketball clinics in Yugoslavia. Hired until the end of the exhibition season, Omalev will take notes on offensive patterns and Riley’s comments and will meet with Divac afterward to go over everything. Occasionally, during practice, Omalev will be called in to point something out.

Riley never expected to easily scale the language barrier. He said he has about 30 common basketball terms, written in Serbo-Croatian, that he plans to memorize. Riley also said he will give Omalev a list of slang terms used by the Lakers and have him teach them to Divac.

“I see (a blank wall) occasionally when I talk to him,” Riley said. “I think his performance in practice so far is just 50% (of his true ability) because of the language (problem). He’s not comfortable. He’s learning a new system, and he hasn’t shown yet what he’s capable of doing.”

Added Johnson: “It’s going to be hard. Even today it was difficult sometimes, what Riley wanted him to do. I think the better he gets to understanding English, the better he’ll do.”

Reserve center Mark McNamara has served as something of an on-court guide for Divac.

“Spending time in Europe myself (Italy and Spain), I understand what it takes to learn a language and how to approach it,” said McNamara, who has volunteered to learn Serbo-Croatian. “I know what I can say to him to make him understand. If you use a word like holler, he doesn’t know what that means. You say, ‘I talked to you.’ Simple verbs, no slang. I remember over there, when somebody started throwing slang at me, I was lost. So, I give him the quick, easy explanation, like move, go. Simple terms.

“But he still has to learn all of Riley’s terms, like rip and power. Even I have to re-learn them. Riley’s terminology is not the same as other coaches’ in the league.”

Also new to Divac is the more physical, defense-oriented nature of the NBA and the Lakers’ insistence on the fast break whenever possible.

During a positioning drill one day last week, forward Orlando Woolridge easily dislodged Divac from his position in the low post. As if swatting a fly, Woolridge pushed Divac away with an elbow and a well-placed knee. Divac is four inches and 30 pounds heavier than Woolridge.

“I feel I am strong, but they are all strong here,” Divac said. “Yes, I need (to be) stronger.”

The Lakers put Divac on a weight program last August and say he has added muscle and reduced body fat. But he still needs to gain strength to play in the low post.

Weight training is not done in Yugoslavia, Divac said, adding that many European players also are heavy smokers. He smoked at one time, he said, but has since quit.

Radja said: “All (Yugoslav players) need to work with weights. Vlade needs that to be a rebounder. He is better on offense than defense. He can block good shots. His only (problem) is that he is not strong. But he is fast. You’ll be surprised how fast he can run.”

That figures to be an asset to the Lakers in their post-Kareem running era. But Riley does not believe that Divac will soon be making people forget Abdul-Jabbar.

Eventually, though, Riley sees promise.

“Vlade is not a back-to-the-basket player,” Riley said. “But people are who they are. You are not going to change a person who has that kind of body structure and personality and has been playing the game for 10 years. We will make him more physically conscious, but we can’t remake him. We have to learn to employ him the best way we can.”

The Lakers’ worst nightmare must be that, if and when Divac develops into a quality NBA player, the Yugoslav army will beckon him home.

All able-bodied Yugoslav males are required to spend a year in the army. Divac and other sports stars are routinely granted deferments until their careers end. Until now, though, the athletes have remained in Yugoslavia, or at least Eastern Europe.

Divac and the other Yugoslav exports were breaking new ground in government bureaucracy when they sought military deferments after signing with NBA teams. Divac, himself, apparently had his deferment revoked in August and was ordered to report to active duty in mid-September.

Only days before he was scheduled to report, he was granted a one-year deferment. He can apply for another deferment again next summer, according to an official Yugoslav agency.

Neither the Lakers nor Fleisher, Divac’s agent, know exactly what internal machinations occurred between the Yugoslav government and the country’s basketball federation.

A few theories have been suggested, however.

Divac said that the basketball federation misunderstood his Laker contract and believed that he would not be allowed to play for the Yugoslav national team in international competition. So, feeling slighted, the federation submitted Divac’s name for military duty.

“No problem,” Divac answered, this time without Omalev’s assistance. “I’m all right until after L.A. (contract, three years). Maybe five years, maybe longer. Just a misunderstanding.” Radja elaborated.

“What happened to Vlade was jealousy by the federation,” Radja said. “He can delay it another five years with no problem.”

But Copic, the Yugoslav sportswriter, gave a more detailed explanation. He said the saga of Divac’s military status has been covered thoroughly by Yugoslav papers.

“In May, he wrote a letter to (the government) asking for a military deferment,” Copic said. “He was going to play in Spain the next season, and the (federation) knew that. But then, one month later, he got the invitation to come to the NBA, and they draft him in the army. He asked for help to get him out of it, but it was a little late at that point.

“Then, he wrote an objection (letter) to the army. That was rejected. But then, just recently, at the highest degree of military headquarters, they agreed to let him postpone it for a year.”

OK. Got that.

And what would Divac be doing if he had been sent off to boot camp in Trebinje?

“The usual thing,” Copic said. “Get familiar with weapons and do maneuvers.”

That, basically, is what Divac is doing at training camp here.

It was another of Riley’s fast-break drills, with Magic Johnson and Vlade Divac leading the charge. Open near the basket, Divac received a typically fancy pass from Johnson. But before he could lay in the ball, the defender recovered and contested the shot.

His face twisted in frustration, Johnson then exaggerated the act of dunking the ball off the fast break. No finesse allowed, Johnson seemed to be saying in pantomime. Divac nodded.

“He was probably bigger than everybody over there (in Yugoslavia), and guys didn’t get to him on defense as quick,” Johnson said later. “He was just kind of jogging in on the break, and I was getting tired of it. So, I told him.”

A few minutes passed, and Johnson and Divac again were paired on the fast break. This time, Divac took a bounce pass from Johnson and, without breaking stride, stretched out his right arm for a quaking dunk.

Johnson’s smile stretched from here to Belgrade as he gave Divac his first Laker high-five.