Growing up the son of a Yugoslavian soldier in a time of rending war, Vladimir Radmanovic came to see basketball as a safe house.
While his homeland fractured along deep ethnic divides in the early 1990s, he was drawn to the ideal of one team with one purpose.
Moving with his military family — four times in four years between the ages of 11 and 15 — Radmanovic made only temporary, throw-away friends. Then, in the seventh grade, his pituitary gland kicked into overdrive. Radmanovic grew head and shoulders above his ever-changing cast of classmates and was funneled toward organized basketball.
Stability was the sport’s first promise. The game would provide a sense of belonging, even as his professional life has become a travelogue: Seattle, Los Angeles, Charlotte, Oakland and now Atlanta.
“I never really had a chance to have friends for life,” Radmanovic said last week before the Hawks departed for a five-game road trip. “Moving from town to town, trying to meet new people all the time. I had the option to start playing basketball, and I saw that as an opportunity to be with a group of guys I could relate to.”
These days, the veteran forward is being asked to relate to a group of Hawks in need of all the front court production they can muster.
Jersey No. 77
He’s No. 77 in your program, the only player in the league wearing that number, a skinny forward in the guise of an offensive lineman. He chose the extra large number — the fourth highest in the league, for those keeping score — for no other reason, he said, than that he just likes the look of twin sevens.
He’s the one who coach Larry Drew deploys off the bench in hopes of squeezing a few 3-pointers from the big man, to make up in some small part for the scoring lost when Jamal Crawford left town. He is an investment for some future night when he might heat up, give the Hawks more than the five points a game he’s currently averaging, and swing a pivotal game their way.
The 6-foot-10 Radmanovic didn’t start playing the game until he was 14, beginning, he said, as someone who was “just running up and down trying to get some rebounds.” He grew into one of those European-style big men who enlarge the court with the threat of shooting from any distance.
Discovered on one of Serbia’s top teams, drafted 12th overall by Seattle in 2001, Radmanovic has survived the NBA better and longer than most.
He came to the Hawks in the post-lockout, free-agent rush, 31 years old and toting a colorful, unmatched set of baggage.
He is the one player on this roster with a championship (Lakers, 2008-09).
He also is the only one here who has ever been fined $500,000 for a clandestine snowboard outing during an All-Star break (Lakers, 2007).
Against the grain
A distinctive element about Radmanovic’s long career is the aura of mischief around it, one that belies an upbringing as a colonel’s son in a regimented home. “I knew exactly what I can do and what I cannot do,” he said of his youth, speaking in confident, self-taught English. “I wasn’t perfect. I did some dumb stuff growing up. But, at the same time, I knew there were consequences for the things I did.”
Yet, once you locate a photo from the 2005 playoffs, showing Radmanovic with his hair braided into some sort of abstract maze, you realize that he is not afraid of the unconventional. His hair is now closely cropped; there is little danger of him reviving the style should the Hawks make it to another postseason.
Given some of their cultural common ground, Radmanovic counts center Zaza Pachulia as his closest friend on the Hawks. Radmanovic had a distinctive first impression with Pachulia, dating back eight seasons.
“Met him when Seattle came to Orlando and we went to dinner,” said Pachulia, then a Magic second-round pick. “And he made me pay. I’m the rookie [earning $376,000] and he’s making millions [$1.7 million].”
Back when Radmanovic was a Laker, his Zen-master coach Phil Jackson once called him a “space cadet,” which is a little like getting labeled eccentric by Lady Gaga.
At the height of his career, while working on a five-year, $30 million contract with the Lakers, Radmanovic thought it would be a good idea to sneak off and go snowboarding during the 2007 All-Star break. He returned to the team with a separated shoulder. Bad enough that he violated a clause in his contract by hitting the slopes; he then compounded the issue by initially lying about how he got hurt. Radmanovic missed nearly two months and the Lakers fined him a cool half-mil.
“That was a lesson for me,” he said, looking back. “Being an athlete I never had a major injury in my career. I almost felt invincible. When I put those boots and board on, that’s how I felt: Nothing can happen to me; I’m made of some special material, and I can do whatever I want. When I hit that snow, it was like a wake-up call.
“[The fine] was a lot of money. I know a lot of people work a long time to make that kind of money. At the same time, it was a valuable lesson.”
It was reported that, during his final practice with the Lakers, a 2009 trade to Charlotte all but done, Radmanovic wore Vans — casual canvas shoes popular with skateboarders — onto the court. He disputes that tale — not the fact that he wore inappropriate shoes to practice, but rather the brand. They were Nike.
Not quite a rebel
Upon further self-examination, Radmanovic calls himself a free spirit, but he’s hardly a rebel. Mr. Halfpipe is the same player who lit into his Golden State teammates in 2010 for not taking their jobs seriously enough. But it is his life, and he’ll make up the rules as he goes.
What he says he most appreciates about basketball is a structured environment. But he also spouts an individualistic philosophy: “In life in general, I don’t like rules. When it comes to life, I don’t like boundaries.
“If you tell me I can’t cross the street because it’s a red light and there are no cars five miles around, I’m not going to sit on the sidewalk waiting for the green light.”
In his brief time with the Hawks, Radmanovic has been a quiet presence coming off the bench, making about four of every 10 of his 3-pointers, averaging five points a game. Maybe too quiet.
Drew has, in fact, prodded him to be a little more flamboyant and fearless on the floor when a 3-point shot presents itself.
“I heard [the old space cadet rap], but, no, I haven’t seen any signs of that,” the Hawks coach said.
“I love the way he plays. I like his quickness on the floor. I just wish when he has that opportunity to let it fly that he’ll look for a shot a little bit.”
On a one-year contract for the veteran minimum of $1.35 million, Radmanovic said he has outgrown many of the mistakes of youth.
No more snowboarding, he promised, at least not until he’s done playing.
Selfishly, he doesn’t want to do anything that would shorten his life-span in this league. The NBA is his normal, it is his winter and spring home, and not a lifestyle to take lightly. “No, I’m not looking forward to ever going back to Europe and practicing twice a day,” he said. “I got a little spoiled. This is the best league in the world, the best competition. It has the best conditions. I don’t want to go backward.”
A Hawk for a little more than two months, Radmanovic has yet to do much to distinguish himself from the rest of the temp workers on the bench.
He mostly has been the good son of a soldier. Radmanovic is stressing the calmer, better part of his nature now. Among the lessons he has learned after more than a decade in the league is that unrestrained free spirits generally don’t make good free agents.
THE RADMANOVIC FILE
Born: Nov. 19, 1980, Trebinje Srpska-Bih, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Marital status: Single
Height: 6-10
Weight: 235
International basketball experience:
-- Member of Yugoslavian junior national team, 1996-97
-- Played three seasons for Belgrade Red Star
-- Played for Yugoslavia in 2002 FIBA world championships
-- Played for 2004 Serbia-Montenegro Olympic team
NBA career transactions:
-- Drafted 12th overall by Seattle, 2001
-- Traded to Los Angeles Clippers for Chris Wilcox, 2006
-- Signed as free agent with Los Angeles Lakers, 2006
-- Traded to Charlotte for Shannon Brown and Adam Morrison, 2009
-- Traded, with Raja Bell, to Golden State for Stephen Jackson and Acie Law, 2009
-- Signed as free agent by Atlanta Hawks, 2011
NBA career stats (through Friday): 692 games, 213 starts, 22.8 minutes per game, .382 3-point shooting percentage, 3.9 rebounds per game, 8.3 points per game
Hawks stats: 29 games, 3 starts, 17.2 minutes per game, .402 3-point shooting percentage, 3.0 rebounds per game, 4.9 points per game
Miscellaneous: Parents Stevan and Andjelka; older sister Tatjan; the Vlad Ramanovic Children’s Foundation benefits displaced children in Serbia-Montenegro.
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